


All That Glitters Is Gold

by doomingdawn



Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Angst, Atheism, Blow Jobs, Character(s) of Color, Condoms, Dom/sub Play, Dom/sub Undertones, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, Drugs, Established Relationship, Eventual Smut, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Existentialism, Families of Choice, Family Angst, Family Issues, Fluff and Angst, Gay, Group Sex, Guns, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Light Dom/sub, Love, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Open Relationships, POV Character of Color, POV First Person, POV Male Character, Partnership, Power Play, References to Drugs, Religious Content, Religious Discussion, Religious Guilt, Sleep Sex, Slice of Life, Smut, Unreliable Narrator, Violence, back at it again at krispy kreme, breath play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-11-03 23:47:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 40
Words: 52,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10977915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomingdawn/pseuds/doomingdawn
Summary: orJimin’s DreamPark Jimin endures a complicated life of drugs, sex, and free will. While locked deep within his mind, he floated to the bottom of sentience and sank to its surface. When he touched the water's edge, a whirlpool formed at his fingertips. Opening his mouth to speak, air bubbles kissed his lips. And when he woke up, the world stopped spinning. His senses grew hazy; obscurity and lucidity were equally real. But not everything is as it seems, and how could he ever tell the difference? How will his friends and loved ones shape his waking fate? Can his childhood sweetheart and criminal lover Yoongi be the foundation he needs, or are they destined to settle down before truly feeling fulfilled? In combat with family, sobriety, religion, violence, and society itself, not even Jimin knows where the future will lead him.





	1. Light Years

**Author's Note:**

> This story is related to my series [_Slave to the Rhythm_](http://archiveofourown.org/series/591757) insofar as the protagonists of each story sharing consciousnesses in a complex and indirect fashion. You **do not have to** read [_Slave to the Rhythm_](http://archiveofourown.org/series/591757) in order to understand _All That Glitters Is Gold_ , but if you plan on ever reading it, please consider doing so before continuing past chapter 1 of _All That Glitters Is Gold_ to avoid spoiling yourself (and to also fully appreciate the thematic and personal intertextuality of the two stories).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I want you to know that your dreams are as valid as your real life experiences._

Have you ever felt uncomfortable with something that happened in your life? I don’t just mean on a personal level, but rather... _anything_. With the world at large, perhaps. Take a moment. Think about history that felt surreal in the making. A long day that felt like a dream. Were you mad? Upset? Sad? Dig deeper. I’m looking for lethargy. Melancholy. Thoughtfulness that seemed so gargantuan yet so removed. Dysphoria that tore at the fabric of your warm back with nothing but plump fingertips which pressed so hard, they left bloody marks. But it didn’t hurt. It was jarring like a ghost. Dazzling. 

Something changed in that moment, didn’t it? Yes, baby. Something changed. It was so big. It wasn’t a different meal, or not being able to get to the gym. Bigger than making it to work late. Bigger than moving. Bigger than breaking up. A car accident? We’re getting there. You can taste it. It was profound. It changed everything, forever, about something you did or didn’t know well. A name you saw everyday, gone. A personality that would never be the same. 

You’re crying.

It’s more than just one brain. It’s more than a way of life, more than a norm. More than a ritual for the entire world. More than the sleeve of a universe. It’s more than one set of operations can ever be. One state of being can’t encompass or eagerly explain the challenge of change.

I’m going to tell you something special about change. Keep it in your head, whatever it is.

You felt it, didn’t you? That it didn’t have to be like this. That’s because you knew, somewhere out there, it _wasn’t_ like this. You know the truth. It’s in our hearts and our spines. Our lungs and the pits of our brains.

Did you know that when a human dies, they lose a bit of weight? Just a little, but what is it? Where does it go? It’s our fuel, of course. Our metabolism. Our heartbeat. It’s the modicum of life that powers our involuntary actions. It allows us to eat more or starve. And when we die, it disappears.

Scientists have this idea called ‘the law of conservation of energy’. I’ll speak as simply as I can: ultimately, everything is identical at a micro scale. And energy, like matter, can neither be entirely, permanently destroyed nor conjured up from thin air. It was always there to begin with. And it is impossible, scientifically impossible, for the energy within us to vanish when our bodies decide to retire, likewise. 

The energy that leaves us, what is it? It’s our soul. Your soul is like your heart and your spine. Your lungs and the pits of your brains. Some people believe that the pineal gland is its cockpit. I don’t think so. Our soul is our energy. Our consciousness. Our sentience. 

That discomfort you felt, when something seemed so… unbelievable? Your soul knows, as it is profound energy, that there is a world like ours where your point of contention is nonexistent. Whatever you’re hung up on, know that it doesn’t exist everywhere. Matter occupies its own space and can be transmuted individually by universe, but what if there are multiple universes? And what if energy is also spread thin across them, but because energy is so dynamic, it exists as a cohort of carbon copies? 

Our souls are one a universe, as they are energy. Believe it or not, the philosophy of truth and reality which this broaches says a lot about its own conundrum. The issue of ‘then what is the truth?’ answers itself.

There is no truth.

Every decision, every chance, every change, is polarizing. There is then, like a binary, a universe where this did happen and where it did not. 

If it makes you feel better, there are universes were millions upon millions–numbers you cannot comprehend, that we cannot conceptualize–of events you would have hated have occurred. 

I know… you don’t feel much better. But close your eyes. Cover your ears. Hold yourself. Listen to the silence. Meditate. Keep your mind awake and let your body fall asleep. Don’t touch your itchy nose. Your body is a vessel tricking you in its selfishness. It wants you for its own, but you may use it as your tool instead. You are allowed to spend your time here mastering the delivery and navigation of your soul. 

Your spirit energy is given autonomy when you fall asleep with cognitive activity and peace. Use your dreams, which you now control, to offer you insight into another world.

How many ways can I describe a dreadful dream? Nothing more than sweet serenity, bubblegum pink, shaking limbs and an upset stomach. Everyone knows what it feels like, to start to lose your grasp on reality. You start to panic and realize it was never real to begin with just in time. What if we felt that at an excruciatingly painful pace? What if it took us years to wake up?

What if waking life felt like a dream? What if stress and fatigue felt like a dream? How would you know what the truth was, if you fell asleep and had dreams that lasted hours? How could you tell the difference between a nap and a coma? How much do you rely on your senses? What if your thoughts are dull and your senses are duller, what then? How would you escape the maze? 

And what if _all_ of this is a dream?

I want you to know that your dreams are as valid as your real life experiences. Guess what? There is an unfathomable quantity of renditions of life. The multiverse is endless, period. Listen to yourself. You’ll know it as your heart, or your gut. It’s all of your life. It’s your energy. You’re poetry in motion. You’re a being of energy, and your body is matter. Take care of your body, appreciate your body, but use it. Find deliverance, and remember: you are magical. That energy could find matter, inhabit a body, and create life... 

I couldn’t move, but I wasn’t paralyzed. No, trapped in the stillness of remembering everything I had and what I lost when I opened my eyes. It wasn’t hard to remember my life, but it felt so distant while I thought about it. Do I hallucinate? Am I in love? Is this just another dream?

I opened my eyes. Be brave.

My body is a tiny dip in the California King. The mattress is too plush, too soft; it’s swallowing me whole, my peripheral vision drowning in fluffy white noise. I felt his lips on my throat a moment later. A bear, a boar, mauling me by surprise. I jumped forward and kicked a heavy warmth by my feet. Another body, sleeping. Or, once was. I grunt. 

My name is Park Jimin. I’ve just awoken from the longest dream of my life.


	2. By the Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Maybe none of it has to make sense. Maybe none of it should, would, or will ever be making any sense._

I remembered everything from my dreams like a painful monologue, but the haze of slumber couldn’t hold my mind back from the present for long. 

The room is orange, that’s a fact. Not the walls, which are a pastel yellow I realize I chose, but the sun’s dimming rays painting over them are a vibrant, reddish hue. Yoongi is beside me in nothing but a white muscle shirt, which is ironic considering what it doesn’t hide. The air conditioner is cranked, set all the way down somewhere around fifty-five, and I know we both like it cold beneath the blankets. There’s an audible commotion coming from behind the closed door which leads to the living room. I can smell marijuana. The digital clock to my right reads 5:00 PM. I’m wondering two things in an instant: what time did I go to bed, and how long have I been asleep?

Perhaps Namjoon could be a reliable source. I look down at him, and he is awake and happy in light grey briefs. He’s resting his head in the palm of his hand, and he’s smiling up at me devilishly. I know, when our eyes meet, that I shouldn’t remember everything I just felt. I shouldn’t remember the dreams I had. The life I lived. I shouldn’t remember the intimacy and the madness, the heartbreak and the happy ending. The happy ending least of all. I spoke a silent prayer, that maybe, secluded in its own spatial paradise, time isn’t linear. Maybe I’m out there. No, I know I’m out there. Some ‘me’ has two boyfriends and schizophrenia and a journalism job. 

No, this life’s a little different. Yoongi’s real. He was inspired. He must be the same Yoongi I felt in my dreams, too, but he isn’t attuned to his truth. His soul. He can’t feel it yet.

“What time did we go to bed?” Namjoon answered a long four seconds later.  
“You two came in here ‘round 1:30 this morning, said you were tapping out.”  
“Tapping out?”  
“C’mon; bud, we were burnin’, beers…”  
That much felt natural. I knew that. By now, things were coming back to me, but the words still poured from my mouth. “And what else?”  
“Some LSD. Acid. Good shit. Trippin’ balls.”

This can’t be real. I can still feel it. All of the dots are connecting in my head. Every detail of the story makes sense. Just the fact that it was a dream makes sense. I don’t know if it was a dream, actually, but that’s how I experienced my other life, and it would make sense. I stop myself, running my hands through my hair, tightening my grip on the back of my scalp. Maybe none of it has to make sense. Maybe none of it should, would, or will ever be making any sense. 

I know everything about my life, even if it feels foreign. We do a lot of drugs. We have a lot of parties. I don’t know who’s lighting up in the living room of my tighty townhouse, but it’s probably Seokjin and Jungkook. Maybe Taehyung’s there too. Maybe Hoseok is there. I cannot comprehend anything, including relationships, including how fucking awkward it might just be to see some of them face to face. Not that these men are any different in their perverted demeanor and open conceptualizations of ‘friendship’ and ‘intimacy’, but maybe that’s more about the binary than anything else. More about the binary, and men. I’m still trying to figure that out.

My hair is light brown, and I start asking myself if it’s as damaged as I remember it being. Just its color is so alarming that I start to wonder if I’m playing two truths and a lie with my own surroundings. My body is the same. Ironically, it’s the only picture perfect thing. True to life, and to my dream. Seems odd.

“You still trippin’ balls, or…?”  
“Fuck off, Namjoon.”

I’m going back to bed. So I take two of the vicodin laying out on my end table and fall asleep.


	3. My Boy Builds Coffins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Waking up sweaty reminded me of what it meant to have a dream. It was a message, a premonition of my world and a vision of another._

The way Yoongi spoke roused the masses effortlessly. He could command a crowd with a flick of his wrist. Just a smile built climactic suspense, and when he frowned, his followers wept. I suppose that the president’s wife would be me, a sacred target and a holy national treasure. They would all look to me, wondering about love and art, literature and uniformity and gentle reason. It was a thoughtful thing, to worship me too, but also to envy me, to hate the role I filled in the minds of the believers. But I settled my lover’s vicious emotions, and as he would lead the rebellion, I would rest in secure privacy, barefoot but without child, and I would draw a map to the future. What of our world when the blight had been finished? How would we organize ourselves?

Yoongi’s emotion and passion were inspiring. Action came. How poetic can I be when I describe the death, the murder, of millions. When he spoke on economy, when he detested the commodification of production, I understood it. Neither communism nor capitalism. We cannot conceptualize, at present, the primitive state we must revert towards to save our planet and ourselves. He was a God to them, and they conquered the island. There was nothing left when the West ended us. Nuclear explosions, one after another. Missiles, distant and then close. All weak. They had nothing left. No massive atomic bombs, but radioactive artillery nonetheless. So I saw the pattern, a zig-zag shape, a diagonal jump, back and forth. One hit the state house. Another, our hospital. They came closer to our home at a dreadful pace. We began to flee. 

Skies were blue. Clouds were beautiful. I was heavy in his arms. I turned around and told him I loved him when I saw the last dump, a foreign plane speeding up after ejaculating one last time. A high-velocity death machine. And we deserved it. I was hopeless. I saw, somehow, a magical gift, divinatory farsight, their space shuttles leaving one after another in a perfect line and without exhaust. I knew, then, that they had every intention of eviscerating Earth and leaving our corpses in a chemical tundra. Perpetual winter. They ruined it all slowly and then disrespected our environment one last time to tear us apart. To quiet the voices of dissent. In that moment, I felt conviction regarding a gift of mine. Was it the hyperanalytical gift to overthink, overspeak? The megaemotional gift of sensitivity to external energies? I was a prophet. I was valued as such. I was a gift. And with a flash, as the last missile landed, it was all over. A searing against my bones. An acute pain along the top of my head, and then, whiteness.

Waking up sweaty reminded me of what it meant to have a dream. It was a message, a premonition of my world and a vision of another. My Yoongi is a drug dealer. A community leader. And we have a nice life, but some things in my first dream hit home. My mother isn’t dead, no, but she isn’t exactly alive either. She has dementia at a cripplingly young age. Probably why I feared not being able to interpret reality in my dream. I can’t visit her. It makes no difference; she’ll never remember a day later, and it does nothing but torment me. So I leave her with the assisted living people, and it isn’t easy, but I do it. I hate it, but I don’t dwell on it. Because I know what the mind is and is not. My mother still lives in my memories. Is her soul deteriorating with her body? Or is it leaving her slowly?

And I’m not a teenager, I’m a young adult. I’m not fresh out of high school, I just graduated college. I commuted. I met Yoongi in high school. And now, I walk around this party house in my underwear and play music from the 70s every chance I get. Namjoon wants to be a rapper. My mind grows weary of restating facts. It’s not my job to, but I’m still shaken by a continued high. I finally open my eyes and check the time again. It’s only 1:00 AM, and I’m alone in bed. But the door is open, and someone notices that I’m awake, because I’ve kicked the blanket off entirely and any motion from my naked body is in his peripheral vision. Yoongi steps inside and shuts the bedroom door behind him, walking to the edge of our bed and pulling my head into his chest. I didn’t know I had vertigo until he did that. 

“I’m gonna puke.” I said, pushing myself away from him and jumping to my feet.

We have two bathrooms in our home: a guest toilet and sink downstairs near the large dining and living room and kitchen, and one connected to our bedroom. So I took the easier route and limped towards the shower, sitting on its edge before flinging my head into the toilet bowl and throwing up. Everything.

“I’m never giving you that shit again. I shouldn’t have done that.” His guilty voice was endearing, but I wasn’t charmed given the present state of my digestive system. My nerves were shot to hell. Every orifice felt as if it was on fire, as if I really had just awoken from a coma. It was as if my body was remembering what the world felt like. Nothing was clean, I couldn’t be immaculate. I wasn’t prim and proper, and I couldn’t put my suffering into words. He rubbed my back and neck as I emptied my stomach. “I’m sorry, baby… shit…” He yelled out into the living room for aid, and my closed eyes clenched tightly. I flinched. His voice seemed louder than it really was, and someone brought a cup of water from the filter in the kitchen into the bathroom by the time it had stopped echoing in my head.

I had never been the party mess before. I was never the person who couldn’t hang. Apparently, a huge dose of exotic acid can change all of that. I tripped balls, that much is on point. Fucking Namjoon. 

All the thoughts of confusion I was harboring were quickly erased as I accepted their fate as a monolithic dream and nothing more. I was sick for two whole hours and went back to bed after drinking half a gallon of water.

Hugs, not drugs.


	4. Life as a Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _For us, going this long without sex is a lot to handle. We’re animals._

After thinking about my body so much, working as an exotic dancer doesn’t seem like such a good idea. The sensitivities I suffocated before were back and better than ever with plenty of vengeance. Not that Yoongi would ever let me, especially not at the club he owns. I finally felt like a normal person by noon, when I got out of bed and took a long shower in solitude. I tried my best to sustain a chiseled musculature along my wide torso and broad-shouldered build overall, but the largeness remained. Yoongi always said he liked that I was ‘thick’. He loves it, I can tell. It’s genuine, sexual, visceral. Not a self-esteem pep talk, a lustful comment. And that’s great, but when my stomach moves, when something’s smooth, when my chest or my thighs or my ass jiggle and shake, I think about it. Nobody minds. It’s a hot commodity to everyone but myself. That’s how things are sometimes.

I dry my hair with a towel and a blow dryer and comb it out. It’s a light brown that doesn’t look natural against my olive skin. I want to change it, but I’m not sure which color to buy. I’ve been in a rut for a week or two, now: reading books and not paying attention, starting something just to finish it prematurely half an hour later. No wonder I dove the fuck in on party night. A lot of people say their lives, or the way they see the world, were changed after a hellish hit of acid. I’m just one of those people, now.

But old habits die hard, and when I get dressed, I throw one of Yoongi’s dramatically over-sized sports jerseys on and walk out into the living room. When I open our bedroom door, the steam from my shower floods out. Everything’s a mess from the party, though I can tell most of the immediate trash has been shoveled into the bin. At least they tried. 

Yoongi’s on the couch, alone, in nothing but a pair of boxers. His cock is out, stretching the hole in the fabric, and he’s stroking himself with one hand while he holds the remote with his other, absentmindedly staring at the television. A split second later, his mind processes my arrival. He’s sober. 

“Jacking off?” I sound disappointed.  
“You’ve been asleep for ages, baby!” His voice is lighthearted like an immature boy on a second date. We’ve been together for half a decade, though. A moment of silence as I pace towards the couch and sit by him casually. A lightbulb goes off in his head, because I look healthier, and my lips are always swollen in the morning from how I sleep with my mouth wide open. I’ve been sleeping for a while, so they’re probably modelesque. “You wanna suck me instead?”

When I describe the vulnerabilities of men, I never exclude myself. Because when he asks, the mood appears out of nowhere. Suddenly, my warm palm and short fingers are wrapped around his phallic endowment, and I’m marveling at his size again. 

For us, going this long without sex is a lot to handle. We’re animals. Even when we’re just asleep next to each other... Yoongi still has wet dreams about me. I’ll wake up and roll over and feel a huge, sticky wet spot and be aroused (at the thought of such an intimate obsession) and frustrated (with the fact that I now have to wash the comforter in the morning). I do the laundry because he supports me. He likes taking care of me, and I make his life heavenly, because he has a flawless significant other, and that makes someone like him elated everyday. A blowjob a day keeps the bitches away. Not that he’d ever cheat on me, but I just like doing it. I have my own obsessions.

He starts breathing heavily and coos something sweet when I bend over and use my mouth, sucking on the swollen head of his thickness. I run my lips from just beneath the head to the tip, flicking at the slit with my agile tongue at the end of each lap. Yoongi is huge: almost disturbingly thick, particularly smooth, and renowned, in my eyes, for the delectable curvature of his shaft. His head didn’t stick out unnaturally, it flowed with the shape and had a rounded tip. Its crown didn’t bulge over the top of the shaft, because the base was the thickest part. Everything became gradually smaller, but his pride was hulking, and the equally admirable size of his heavy ball sack meant lots of noise, the largest loads, and a noticeable bulge every time. I saw him as both a grower and a shower, and the presence and shape of his ‘manhood’ always excited me, no matter where we were. It doesn’t help–or in this case, does–that despite being of a decent height, he’s a skinny boy of an only lithe athleticism. His muscles strengthen his core instead of bulging outwards, so his dick looks even bigger as a result. But it’s thicker than my wrist no matter what his build, and it’s the biggest out of all of our friends and confidants. Its aesthetically pleasing size and shape simply wins it points. Not to talk of Yoongi’s cock like a competitive stallion. But he is my lover, after all, and I am either proud or attempting to invoke envy elsewhere. He’s Triple Crown worthy in _every_ way. 

I use both of my hands on his shaft, letting a mixture of my saliva and his premature ejaculate ooze from my mouth and coat his length. It’s the perfect lubricant for my every loud pump, and you can tell we’ve been partying for days instead of fucking, because he doesn’t last more than five minutes. He floods my mouth, and the seed is not only thick but falling from such powerfully released ropes that I cough during my attempts to swallow it all. Most of it ends up in my stomach, but some paints the trimmed darkness of his crotch to his skin. I traced my tongue across the patch five times in a shameless attempt to clean him before pulling back and slipping onto my side. Resting on the couch, I waited for him to become flaccid, waited for him to slip himself inside of his underwear again, before slouching to my feet and looking around the room.

“They made a mess.” I said.  
“Well… so did you.”


	5. The Price Is Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Charisma and all of the personal and physical things which persuade, they’re all my superweapon._

You can bet your ass that I had Yoongi clean up the mess his friends made, working hard while I laid down on the couch. He looked good doing it, too. Usually, I would tidy the house up, but in this case? They’re my friends as well, I get it. But I was not there to condone or sponsor that mess. Sticky liquor spilled on the tile floor. Melted plastic on my precious carpet. Apparently, my headspace was in another world. They should be grateful for that, actually, because if any semblance of my consciousness was truly a room over, it would have materialized above them and snapped their necks with my thighs.

When he was done, he sat back on the couch beside me, but with my head against the arm, he had to lift my legs and put them on his lap to make room for himself. His face was light red, his hair gently glued to his forehead from sweat. I didn’t remember at first, but I could tell a moment later, from the look on his face, that I wasn’t wearing underwear. He could see up the jersey with ease. The thighs, the ass. He wet his lips but I spoke typically still, or maybe my stomach did. It growled as I shifted my body to face him, to look up at him and to not so accidentally get the perfect view for when I pulled my feet back and rested them against his more distant inner thigh. I spoke up.

“I’m starving, it has to have been like, a day since I ate something…”  
“I could eat _you_ right now, shit…”  
“Okay, but seriously.”

Jumping to my feet, I grabbed his shoulder while passing him to use his cellphone. Mine was charging after a long night of battery drain, doing absolutely nothing on my bedroom floor. Since neither of us were in much of a state to go out, my first thought was to order delivery. And then Jungkook called, and I turned the charm on. Charisma and all of the personal and physical things which persuade, they’re all my superweapon. I suppose the intelligence follows suit, which is nice, because the cunning and wit make up for other things. Right now? Sluggishness. I tell Jungkook, in front of Yoongi, that I’ll let him fuck me if he brings me two medium pizzas–one red, one white–and a large box of fries from the place down the street. And he bites.

When I hang up, my voice falls back down an octave. Yoongi laughed:

“You’re not gonna really swing that ass for him first, are you?”  
“I didn’t tell him when. Give it a week.”

Jungkook showed up in in a dark blue tank top and red jean shorts. A sign of the times, and the changing weather was hot. He had a big smile on his face. I took the food and placed it on the nearby kitchen counter without formally welcoming him. It’s not as if that had _ever_ stopped the boys from making their way into our home. 

I’m glad we have two living rooms. The one downstairs is much nicer, but they both have furniture and televisions. All Yoongi’s game consoles are upstairs. The wires are a mess. I’m glad right now, because Yoongi can be sitting upstairs and not have to see Jungkook behave like a teenager in need, pressing his crotch against the side of my shorter, wider build as if I were a toy. Not that I mind pretending to be a toy, on occasion. He must have thought I was going to open the door like a porn star, considering his expectations. But I told him to wait until tonight instead.

“What’s tonight?” He asked, half inquisitive, half betrayed.  
“I don’t know, like… hanging out, right?” I muse as I shove three fries into my mouth at once, shouting Yoongi’s name to call him downstairs. I took ten seconds to chew, waiting for my boyfriend to trollop into the kitchenette first. He would love to hear this. I feel like a master orchestrator, because the power is in my hands to consent, and to submit, or to dominate the crowd. I look to Jungkook with a smile, and speak just to excite him, to shock him, and to put some sort of business on my agenda. “We’ll have an orgy.”


	6. Hands on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Boys will be boys: ridiculous, primal, in hunger and in sex. I figured that out a long time ago._

Clearly, Jungkook took what I said to heart. He had one slice of each kind of pizza (Yoongi likes the tomato sauce but I prefer a white) and sat at the kitchen table with a smile on his face. Meanwhile, we, the gracious hosts we are, shoved food in our mouths like starving pigs. We stood over the counter and sink and laughed, chewing loudly and flashing each other weird faces. Boys will be boys: ridiculous, primal, in hunger and in sex. I figured that out a long time ago.

“You know, you were really flirty when you were high the other night.” Jungkook looked at me with an accusatory grin. He’s handsome and he knows it. Yoongi turned around before I bothered to look at the devilish boy. Young and mischievous. 

“Oh yeah?” I wanted to know what his point was, I guess. This was nothing new.

“You promised me a blowjob.” He replied matter of factly, resting his upper teeth halfway down his lower lip and nodding his head sternly. 

“I promise you a lot of things. Just chill. Wait for it.”

And to his defense, he did. I wasn’t expecting him to wait around all day, but the parties usually don’t start ‘til dinner. We have a virtually daily potluck at six, or used to. Not everyone could always come, but it’s a full house anyway. Wednesdays and Sundays, if nothing else. That was a rule of our big, great friendship circle. All seven of us, twice a week. Even if we were busy and didn’t see each other aside from that, it kept us tight. More and more ended up too tired with work and the other aspects of their personal lives, but we still handle our business. We don’t break promises.

Jungkook spent most of the day playing video games with Yoongi. Me? I went through every nook and cranny in our pretty little townhouse and made sure it looked spotless. I put everything back into place and refamiliarized myself with every inch of tile and carpet. My home was gorgeous. The money spent on it may not have been the most respectable, but our home certainly was. Money is money. That’s what drug dealers do. They buy expensive things that lie about their career. By now, it wasn’t a lie. It was a stereotype. 

All drug dealers drove nice cars and owned mansions, but we were humble. Yoongi met up with customers at his club, not in our home. The home was for us. Safety and comfort. He did that for me. And he drives a truck. I love him dearly.

Jungkook’s still in college, studying business. His mother babies him and does everything for him. He has a home to go back to where everything is tidy and set, so he does what he wants, parties, stays with us, and goes to class. No part-time job, nothing. Yoongi never went to school because his older brother already knew the game, so now they work together and everything’s peachy. I try to set a good example for his little brother, Jihoon. He’s so sweet and kind, and he’s smart. He should go to college like I did, but for longer. Do something bigger with his life.

I’m embarrassed to mention Jin. That dream felt like a lifetime, and I had some false projection of his pretty face and gentle personality with me and, somehow, I thought I was in love with him. We had classes together two years ago, too. He’s an elementary school teacher! Great with kids, it’s adorable. Of course, like I said, we all went to the same high school. We grew up in the same neighborhood, actually. That’s how we really know each other. My, how things have changed. We used to throw water balloons at each other and play cops and robbers. I was always a robber. We stopped running up and down the streets until the streetlights came on, but we never stopped pretending to arrest each other. 

When Namjoon isn’t pushing his latest mixtape, he’s a bartender. Taehyung is a cashier. Hoseok is a waiter. Everyone dreams of something, but the real people? We work hard. The little people. I wish life was as easy as they make it out to be. My mother always used to tell me that life isn’t fair. But we make do with what we have, and I’d say we’re pretty happy.

Not everyone can hang. They’re busy. They’re still recovering from the acid overload. They’ll see us all in a few days. Aside from Yoongi, Jungkook, and myself, only Namjoon shows up. Back with a vengeance. 

I can only be honest in this world. Honest with my vices, honest with the fact that we were all intoxicated - as per usual. Honest about what happened. Not that anything bad came from it. Yoongi and I have always been like this. Open. When you are about each other that much, and when you’re that young and _that_ hedonistic, you just want to have fun. When you’re that in love, there’s nothing to worry about.

We passed a pipe and a bottle of vodka on the couch upstairs. There’s only one piece of furniture in our more private and personal living room, but it’s long enough to fit four with ease. I only drank, that’s all I wanted. I sat on Yoongi’s lap and we started to talk about sex. Nothing new. This is how it always goes down. Jungkook pulled me into his lap and started grinding into my ass while I faced forward. After a few seconds, I started pushing back, making it a show. My body was a temple again. His hands grabbed my hips and begged for more. He was big. Not as big as Yoongi, but big. I was looking back at his smirk and was caught off-guard when I turned back around and found Namjoon had pulled his pants down.

I could see the veins along his shaft. Blood always made such beautiful shades beneath the skin. His cock was long and sturdy, rather straight and flared at the head. The tip reminded me of black raspberry ice cream. His testicles were modest but always hung low. I tried to treat him with this poetic respect, but when he grabbed my hair, I cut a few corners and pulled him into my mouth. I used a hand and held his hilt, guiding a few inches down, in and out against the back of my throat. Yoongi had the honor of watching until he pushed his flaccid sex against the side of my face. My palm reacted instinctively, caressing his sack as I bobbed my head, turning to the side to begin kissing him with swollen lips. My eyes flickered upward and I heard a zipper from behind me. 

Yoongi massaged my closest cheek and Namjoon rubbed the lobe of my other ear while I brought my lover’s girth to life in my mouth. A sharp moan from my throat vibrated around him when Jungkook prepared my plump rear and gave one jiggling globe a firm slap; the feeling of his premature ejaculate smeared head pushing past the first ring of muscles in a rather dry attempt was something I’m surprised I enjoyed. Jungkook was just barely shorter than Namjoon in manhood but gracefully much thicker. His sounds made me swallow harshly. I started to buck my hips, pushing to and fro, lifting my body up and down as I rubbed the heads of their cocks around one another inside of my mouth, on top of my warm tongue. Namjoon called me a good boy. Yoongi grabbed my hair. They both started to leak onto my tastebuds at the same time. I was drunk. Very, very drunk. So drunk, that I tried to keep sucking when I was lifted. Jungkook was always stronger than he looked, and his muscles were beautiful. 

I was on my back, on my bed, in the blink of an eye. Namjoon slathered lubricant on Jungkook’s cock, which I only knew because I felt it dripping against me. Jungkook started to thrust deeper now, with more power, kissing at my neck. My noises grew louder, more acute. Namjoon and Yoongi kneeled and fed me their phallic strengths again. Both, one of my hands around the hilt of either, pinky fingers rubbing balls and remembering the feeling as I deep throated one after another. Back and forth. This and that. Again and again. Jungkook kissed my neck all over. He snuck in a peck or a kiss, to taste the testosterone, to smell the musk, to allow his lips to graze past the slits of my meal. I felt Yoongi’s thumb hook into the side of my cheek. His moans grew heavier, and he started stroking himself. I knew from the touch that he was ready to finish. Namjoon beat him to it, painting my face a stunning shade of off-white. Everything, but my eyes spared me. They were flickering, struggling to stay open, but I had the pleasure of watching Yoongi’s every detail while he filled my mouth. Thick ropes of hot cum. I’m a slut.

Everything was hazy. Jungkook didn’t pull out, which made me shiver. I felt six hands somewhere along my torso at once, and distinctly, Yoongi’s mouth around me. I cried out and he called my seed sweet. I felt Jungkook’s climax dripping out of me as I fell asleep, inebriated and satiated and tired. Blissfully dirty. 

And when I woke up, I wanted more.


	7. The Devil's Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _We were always closer than everyone else. Yoongi’s always been my best friend._

But I wasn’t awake. Not yet. I was lucid, in another dream. And I knew I was asleep, but somehow, I didn’t care. My brain didn’t mind. It immersed me, physically, emotionally, irrationally.

The best part about smoking was always that it calmed my dreams. Drinking sometimes did the same thing. I usually wouldn’t remember what I dreamed of to begin with, or if I did, it would be less threatening, less negative of an experience altogether.

This time, I was swimming. It didn’t take much effort to keep me afloat. I have neglected to mention until now, when I understand its relevancy, that Yoongi’s back is covered in a tattoo. It stretches from the back of the thigh, starting curved at the backside of the knee, and goes all of the way up to his neck. It stops before his armpit as if to not taint the front of his body, but trails down and grows closer to the front near his waist. It ends at his neck like a collar and covers his shoulders; the only place it slips onto the front of his body is to cover the entirety of his arms, another curve at the top to loop back to his shoulders, and it stops abruptly at his wrists like a uniform long-sleeved shirt. It is all a rich shade of royal blue, but darker and tamer. It seems slightly faded the higher you look. The art is one impossibly long aquatic dragon, with a giant face centered on his back and a seemingly never-ending and disproportionately thin body snaking around, appearing occasionally on his arms. Besides the face, whose snout begins above the crack of his backside and mouse like ears encompass his shoulder blades, most of the illustration is waves. The waves look like leaves to me, or like the waves of that famous Japanese painting. I’m ashamed I don’t remember the name.

Yoongi’s father was involved in crime, too. He fell into his family’s game. That’s how Yoongi and his brother became interested. Their father died our last year in high school. Heroin, not a gunshot or a stab wound. That’s when we became romantic. Yoongi’s mother wanted nothing more than for her three sons to grow up and live a fuller, safer life than her husband did. She’s on the edge of her seat, now, panicking for her last child’s safety. One out of three would be a victory.

Everyone in our neighborhood was always on the poorer side. When Yoongi’s dad came around, he spoiled everyone. He was the only one with any type of money. We all looked up to him, but never dared to do what he did. Yoongi and his older brother inherited what power and reputation he had on the streets; he’s still respected there. 

My parents never had very much of a relationship, but they raised a child together still. I’m grateful that I managed to go to university, because even a standard degree is much better than what everyone else back home has. My best friends now, the seven of us, haven’t gotten half as many opportunities as most kids. I feel like I’m the lucky one.

Jungkook, of course, has more money. He doesn’t live in the neighborhood anymore, his mother doesn’t either. But the story of her marrying a politician after she divorced his father is another story. It’s long, convoluted, and boring for me to remember the details of. I’m not the only one to go to school. Jin’s grandmother cried when he earned his education certificate. Little does she know he spent most of his time on a computer making games in Flash.

I moved into Yoongi’s old apartment when I started school, and when he got on his feet, we bought this townhouse. I say we, but I didn’t pay for any of it. He’s spoiled me since he’s had the ability to. He pays for all of our domestic expenses–the water and electricity, the heat, the food we eat, everything–drives me anywhere I need to be… He even started paying for my schooling the last two years, when his income got a boost from the club. He paid off all of my loans and made sure I didn’t have a dime of debt to my name. I don’t love him for his wealth, of course. Not only have we known each other since we were babies, and not only have we been intimate since before even his _father_ started seeing big paydays, it is his heart which attracts me the most. The money my parents put down for my schooling, he paid them ‘back’. The specter of student loans would haunt no one. Why? Love. He was so happy, smiling brightly, and they cried. We were always closer than everyone else. Yoongi’s always been my best friend. But living together, like this… my parents were suspicious. When they saw him do that, they stopped questioning everything. They stopped squinting at his massive tattoo whenever it peaked out of clothing and they stopped asking me when I was going to get a girlfriend, full stop. Because they say his heart. They say how much he cares. He’s respectable. He loves me, so much. And I love him. It’s impossible to fully understand.

It was impossible to drown, too, floating on Yoongi’s wings, but when I woke up, my upper body jerked forward. As soon as my eyes were open, I could tell it was early morning. Not too early, of course. Well after the time a businessman rolls out of bed, but long before a drug dealer would. Everyone else was still asleep: Yoongi beside me in the bed, Jungkook opposite and cuddled against my back, Namjoon snoring on the couch in the other room. I resisted the temptation to reach past Jungkook, grab a vicodin from my dresser, and fall back asleep. So I laid, silently. I felt dirty, sticky. It wasn’t pleasant anymore. Funny, how sex works.


	8. Body Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Not a word, just half a smile barely visible in the last picture. Perfect._

I snuck out of bed and showered myself. The bathroom vent fan hid my whimpers of pain: two fingers to clean thoroughly. You never want to lay for a night’s sleep with such a thing inside of you. Not unless you’re both horny and under the influence of a mind-altering substance (or more than one, perhaps). Even then, you’ll regret it in the morning. It sticks, it’s cold, it’s dry if you’re unlucky, and if you’re not, you just get to feel useless in oozing peace. Typically, I wouldn’t let anyone but Yoongi do such a thing. And the idea of foregoing a condom comes with only the utmost trust. I don’t have all of that trust for them consistently, least of all Jungkook, who’s on a long leash and behaves too truly like a _dog_.

I went downstairs after I was finished. All of the way downstairs, to a little room behind our basement garage where the workout equipment is. An elliptical and a plethora of weights. I focused on the former and dabbled in the latter; my body wasn’t inherently strong but physically took to the muscle. Yoongi lifted day in and day out, at least pretended to work hard for an hour everyday. It showed, but in his core. I could probably pick him up, but he could throw me across the room. Infinitely stronger, but he doesn’t look it. His arms, his abdomen. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

I don’t mind showering multiple times a day. I usually shower three times a day: once when I wake up, once after I work out, and once before bed. Of course, events, parties, and other outings change that, but I’m a creature of habit. And I like to be clean. Even though an hour and a half had passed, when I got back up to my bedroom on the way to the master bathroom everyone was still asleep. So I washed myself again, this time grabbing my smartphone from where it had sat fully charged on my dresser to play music quietly. It laid on the sink and I heard it chime a few times while I was washing my hair (I’ll dye it a beautiful crimson red soon). After stepping out, drying myself off, and dressing myself in blue shorts, I checked my phone.

It was Seokjin. He had sent me nothing but three pictures–one from above, one from the side, one from below–of his penis. Not a word, just half a smile barely visible in the last picture. Perfect.

If Yoongi is hung like a horse, then Seokjin has a monster dick. I mean that in the most literal sense imaginable, given the rather odd descriptors: Yoongi is curved, long, thick, and basks in all of the glory I have appropriately accredited him with in the past. Although noticeably not as girthy, Seokjin’s quite lengthy–the type that’s likely to be uncomfortable with most lovers–and has an eccentric and sudden curve upward. His shaft starts out straight and then halfway down, begins to lift. The width is consistent. It’s not so dramatic as to be disturbing or disgusting in any way, but it’s tastefully unique and adds to the stunning character of his sex. Riding him face-to-face is like the best prostate stimulating milking toy ever made. Graphic? That’s what happens when you turn a vulnerable young man on.

I hate the way it washes over you. Lust. My face was hot, probably red even beneath the dark skin. I texted him, you coming tonight? School was out, he wasn’t working. No excuse to not party. And he said: absolutely.

Shame he might be alone. Namjoon pulled himself off the couch when I started cooking eggs. The other followed suit. Three naked men in my kitchen, with growling stomachs and disheveled hair and tired eyes. I almost questioned myself when I cracked eight more and had at it. A scrambled egg machine. Spinach and red pepper, salt and cracked black peppercorn. Garlic, paprika, and a uselessly tiny sprinkle of rosemary. Mixed around, mashed up. Another light layer of salt and paprika. They eat it up, in bowls with chopsticks. I gave it all to them. I was still hungry.

Jungkook insisted he _had_ to go home to study for an online quiz, and I believed him. He looked like someone who remembered a doctor’s appointment an hour prior. He didn’t look at me twice. Namjoon remembered to thank me for the food and agreed to take Yoongi’s money. He was probably going into the club to check on things. Might work there through ‘til dawn, too, because your drug dealer seldom gives _you_ money, even when you’re doing them a favor. You owe them some shit. But Yoongi isn’t like that. He knows how to be tough, but he can’t be with them. And he _really_ can’t be with me.

I piled the dishes in the sink and sat on his lap. I kissed the side of his neck and pulled my phone out of my pocket to surf my texts behind his back.

“Thank you.” He said.  
“For what? Cooking?”  
“And being so… flexible.”  
“Literally?” I laughed. So did he.  
“No, just… feeding annoying guys last minute… bouncing back from a trip and ending up in a fourway. And liking it.”  
“Well, the liking it part is just luck, honey.” 

He smiled and rubbed my back while I invited Hoseok and Taehyung with my thumbs. I took a loud breath through my nose before continuing the same thought:

“What about a fivesome?”  
“You’d have better luck getting them into a lineup, baby boy.”


	9. Age of Aquarius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _His voice was husky, like a dozen rose stems grazing past skin. Skin that dared every thorn to tug and tear and rip it apart._

My father’s the youngest of his siblings, and he’s coincidentally the least successful. Blue collar, immature and reckless. A few of my cousins work in law enforcement. I’m never sure if they’d be an in, a saving grace, or my worst nightmare on the streets. I’m a mob spouse, for all intents and purposes. I oppose the law, and not just the law, but what it stands for. I am chaotic and benevolent. I know better: the law doesn’t bring justice, it brings order. Only crime can bring true justice. Revenge. You have to break the law to reclaim power and autonomy. Back home, you have to break the law to survive. In our pretty little suburb, you break the law to come out on top. But too many kids are taught that the law is unwavering, and that it is always right. The law has flaws. It has changed, and it is biased, and most importantly, it is a human product. Humans wrote the law, the flawed beings we are. The human ego orchestrates the law. We are all the wiser for opposing it. We become sharper and more cunning. We learn wordplay, how to sweet talk. We’re intelligent, more inventive, and faster. We have to be faster.

It’s not a matter of safety if you understand what safety is. You realize the humanity–and the inevitable evil–of the law when you humble it. Or more likely, when it humbles itself before your very eyes. When you reach a point where you have connections, a place of social power where the only people present to enforce the law bow or kneel to you. I believe that is ultimately the reason why Yoongi and his older brother chose to inherit their father’s position. Personally, I’ve never felt safer. I know that if someone committed crime towards me, retribution would be swift and uninterrupted. It might seem wrong and counterintuitive: to speak out against law and then to use it as a puppet for personal well-being or gain. But the law’s never going to go away. Ever. It represents the control humanity craves. Law and crime are not good and evil, but a binary, a hegemony, of control. Their conceptualization is an invention. A reflection of moral superiority. We’re social animals, after all. We must learn how to cope with the redundant and tireless reinforcement of the law and its ‘goodness’, and we must survive nonetheless. I don’t mind holding the police department helpless. And, to be quite honest, seeing Yoongi wave that gun around and talk about his dominance over ‘the pigs’ is sexier than a striptease. _That_ is what family is about. **Conviction.**

“I dare anyone to try to tell me that shit.” His voice was husky, like a dozen rose stems grazing past skin. Skin that dared every thorn to tug and tear and rip it apart. I had no idea what he was talking about, but he was pacing back and forth in front of our faithful upstairs couch, having kicked the coffee table back towards the television to make room for his gospel stage. Left to right: Seokjin, Hoseok, and Taehyung sat in front of him. Each were in some stage of laughter or amusement: a grin, a smile, and clapping hands and quivering grunts, respectively. 

“Yoongi.” I spoke softly and when he turned around, surprised to see the bedroom door finally open, he was beaming. Like he was seeing me for the first time in months. Light grey sweatpants sagged around his waist, low to show the vee cut of his crotch, dark pubic hair trailing up to the bottom of his belly button. From behind, his tattoo made him look like a holy beast, but from the front, it looked so much like shirt sleeves that it seemed like a cultural garment, a neat and tidy statement. My cherry red locks stuck to my forehead, still wet. “What are you doing?”

“Telling our friends about… what happened, the other night.” That didn’t answer my question, as with Yoongi, the other night could mean three in the morning this very day or dinner time three weeks ago. But he was delighted to see me in one of his shirts and approached in healthy strides, copping a heavy handful of my backside when he reached his destination. The backside which briefs couldn’t fully cover. Only one glowing orb, clean and fresh and immaculate, and five fingers couldn’t entirely surround it. _That_ was the reason why he still had wet dreams about me. 

The boys portrayed various stages of slutty sleepover fashion: Seokjin in boxers and a tight tee shirt, Hoseok in a tank top and briefs, and Taehyung in nothing but basketball shorts. There was something so innocent and beautiful about this scene on the surface. I took a moment to reminisce on the past and the simple nature of childhood banter. Becoming teenagers really changed everything - and now, as young adults, it didn’t take long for any of our minds to wander. Inappropriately. Which is fine, because I enjoy it. But a massive social web like this (when it comes to intimately trusting, loving in a special kind of way, seven people _is_ massive) is a thing of wonder. It’s a family. The best family I could ask for. And my relationship, just as uniquely open and freeing, had me wondering why I ever dreamed of something else to begin with. I had everything. Why can’t life be as simple as momentary happiness?

I took a seat at the foot of the couch, tugging the shirt off and pulling my knees against my bare chest. I tossed it into the corner and readjusted my tight white underwear so that it wouldn’t make my crotch uncomfortable. Chastely nestled between Hoseok’s lower legs, my eyes followed Yoongi’s back and forth pacing intently. I listened to exactly what he was saying, but it was in one ear and out the other. His voice was as sweet as pie, and I swooned over his tone and his every syllable. I was calmly and blissfully and simply in love. And nothing else about our life was simple, so I tucked my dwelling forces into the back of my overactive brain and stared at his beauty and his hidden scars and the way his large feet clomped against the ground with every stride.

I was mindless. He kept smiling at me, and I felt like the professor’s favorite. Teacher’s pet. His voice calmed gradually, and he walked towards me some ten minutes later and drifted to his knees, holding my cheeks with either of his hands and watching my dazed stare and absentminded smile. He kissed me, and I felt Hoseok’s fingers–all ten–thread through my hair and gently massage my freshly dyed scalp. Yoongi tilted his head, deepened our passionate lip lock, pushed his tongue into my mouth and asked for submission which I happily provided. I could smell the musk when Taehyung began to roll his hips into his own palms. I saw the dark flesh in my head: so impressive, with a light curve. Incredibly veiny. And Hoseok was average in every way, but he was more than fun to play with considering his manageability, and his open-minded approach: against my neck now, the warmth and weight unique there. Humping slowly, subserviently. Jin, I already know well, long and decent and eccentric, and he had pulled himself into nudity first, audibly pumping himself with a moan and an occasional clapping of skin.

Yoongi pulled away, a strand of his own saliva joining our lips, and he asked me if I wanted to have sex. 

I said yes.


	10. For Your Entertainment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sex was work that I treasured, that I was passionate about, but it was still work._

They were all entirely naked by the time I turned around, arching my back and pressing my skimpily clad backside against Yoongi’s covered crotch. I reached out and grabbed Jin and Taehyung with my hands, palming and pumping them, feeling the throbbing warmth against my own sensitive touches. Stare flickering upwards towards Hoseok’s, I slid his head past my lips and began bobbing immediately, maintaining eye contact while I pushed my jaw slack and took all of him inside. My tongue inched forward and I suckled on half of his sack as well, a stunt I could only truly pull and execute with him. Surprisingly, the marginal forward–downward and not upward, for once–curve of him made it easier. His head fell back and a high-pitched, involuntary moans shot from the back of his throat. 

Before I knew it, my briefs were around my knees. My own throbbing smoothness hung free, and Yoongi peppered kisses along its sensitivity. He would worship my ass with teeth and tongue like this, gentle and thorough and loving and ferocious. He wasn’t shy, and he knew how to eat. Deeper, to consume, to let my cheeks sit against his, pulling him in as he drilled and slipped further. His jaw moved in swift motions as he stimulated the immaculate ring of sensitive muscle, swiping himself across the pink flesh inside. I coughed and groaned, thighs quivering, back shivering as my head continued on its course. My hands were sometimes still, but I would continue to twist either wrist when the impatient lovers thrust or pushed in need. Yoongi sat up and used both of his hands to squeeze me, moving my hips like he owned them, lowering my body onto his phallus as I yelled above Hoseok’s gift.

Sex was work that I treasured, that I was passionate about, but it was still work. With one man, I could truly make love. When I felt it, when I meant it. But with four men, it was a job that I enjoyed and was interested in. Lust couldn’t keep me entirely engaged, however - not uninterrupted in my focus. It was difficult to even try, with Yoongi using me like a sleeve around his tip, dramatically stimulating the both of us in brief intervals just for fun. With his full attention attaching himself to my lower body, I swerved my shoulders and swung my neck side to side, resolving that I would pleasure each of our guests one at a time. No one cared about equal timing or fairness when they each had the chance to finish. Once a man ejaculates, he cares about very different things. If you have sex everyday, it only takes one orgasm. If you’re particularly feisty or you’ve gone a while, the reunion might last a few rounds. But when sex is over, it’s tangibly over. You can see that it’s over. We want other things, then. Food. Sleep. Maybe cuddling, or television. But not sex. _Definitely_ not sex.

Hoseok was already so close, so I lapped at the underside of his slit and shaft until he dribbled into my mouth. Impatient hands rubbed my neck, fingers curling to resist the temptation, to not grab a firm hold of my hair. I continued on until I was differently, briskly bitter in the mouth and popped off of him with a translucent dribble tracing my chin. I fell onto the weight of my right arm and looked into Taehyung’s beautiful brown eyes, shaking my head and letting the head of his cock rub against the inside of my cheek, a bulging shape he could see while the warmth consumed him. My mouth had parted, popped open like it was my only purpose. Under any other arrangement, I would have taken my time, but I was thankful for the eager demeanor of his youthful mindset and vigor when he spilled too fast, thin but copious. A white sheet of his own seed sparingly coated his shaft, and I moved with feral licks to clean him without skipping a beat. Yoongi had pushed deeper now, begun to move faster, my body jerking to and fro, my uniformity slipping by the time I was nuzzled between Seokjin’s thighs. I suckled at his sack and kissed the hilt of his shaft, moans suddenly acute and loud. My swollen lips dirtied his length and I worked him as best I could, but I shouldn’t have saved the biggest of the three for last. 

My strong arms shook when I supported myself on my elbows, eyes shut now, suctioning around his phallic bend when I feel a fire in my gut. The dirty talk and low grunts behind me made their way to my prostate, where the broad weight of virtually direct contact had me reaching down with one palm in panic, collecting my own release in my hand instead of letting it dirty the carpet. I was yelling like a porn star. My vision was clouded - I saw speckled interference, a visible white noise contorting my senses and my expressions so carnally that it was enough to push Seokjin over the edge. He had edged himself with his hand for so long already. We were _all_ sexual voyeurists. (Interests in exhibitionism varied.) He was in my hair and painting my eyelids, dripping into my mouth in painfully tiny portions. Swallowing was impossible; I’d have to swallow again, again and again.

When all was said and done, my chin found solace in the corner of the couch by Seokjin’s thigh, cuddling the softness while Yoongi kept himself buried deep inside of me. My thighs were shaking, a jolt of electricity occasionally making me feel a jump forward. I struggled to catch my breath. I swore, I still felt him throbbing inside of me, still felt that special bundle of sensitive nerves aching. He flooded me and dripped down my thighs. My eyes were shut when I felt it: the air was so warm and humid with the musky smell of sex, but still much colder compared to how the center of Yoongi’s warmth in his crotch and his action and his deepness heated me. Comforted me. I chose not to act much when I was lifted and brought to the bathroom. I tasted the similar yet unique flavors of three different men on the back of my tongue as Yoongi washed me in the bathtub. I heard the commotion of our visitors cleaning the living room and arranging sleeping bags and large spaces covered in blankets and pillows. He kissed my cheek and cooed over me like a child while drying my body and my hair, frowning and apologizing when I made a pained sound from his thumb checking my hole for cleanliness and damage once more. Spotless.

My smile was weak as he picked me up and brought me to our bed, laying me down and pulling the blanket up over my naked body. This was the reward where a salary was not necessary: the fiscal cherishment, but also the intimate adoration. As I drifted off, his lips against my forehead, I vowed to do something meaningful the next day. I think he was happy I didn’t ask him to help me swallow a pill before I went under. I might dream, but that was a safer gamble. It was better to get poor sleep and not be able to sleep in late. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Sleep shouldn’t feel like such an accomplishment.


	11. Love Gang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When someone asks you if you were with Yoongi while shit was hitting the fan, you always say no._

I woke up in the middle of the night, my stomach grumbling, parched for something much finer than sink water from our bathroom faucet. My body moved quickly on autopilot, pulling that same old jersey–stale but not dirty–off of the floor and onto my body. It never quite fell past my waist, bunched up before hitting my thighs and staying that way while I briskly and stealthily jogged down the carpeted stairs. I snuck past the campgrounds that were our upstairs living room but didn’t notice a head missing until Taehyung emerged from the downstairs bathroom. I had already eaten three crackers and drank half a can of diet soda by then, my body feeling euphoric from being satiated like that. In a clean, fresh pair of white briefs, he walked around the coffee table and to where I stood by the swivel chair, looming over me ever so casually. The way he whispered, asking me how I was, how I was feeling, made his interest glaringly obvious. The way I let my tongue hang past my lower lip and kept my mouth agape between breaths reciprocated the intimate gesture.

We kissed, tongue to tongue, and sat on the couch. There were no voices in our nighttime confessions, just the sounds of wet lips popping between kisses, the messy sounds of mouths in many forms. He groaned almost inaudibly when I pressed my naked bottom against his bulge, mounting his lap just to toy with him further. But I was tired, the sun was rising, and so I scooted from my perch and hopped to my feet - much to his disappointment. ‘Are you just gonna leave me like this?’ he asked, and I smiled. I got on my knees and took his cock out of the fabric, and I told him to jerk off into my mouth. The sight, the sound of his shaft’s head rumbling against my lips, and my gentle glare brought him to the edge swiftly, and I swallowed his entire load before kissing his sensitive sack a few times with a seductive smile and floating back up the stairs to bed.

We must have woken past noon, Yoongi and I both. I know it was simultaneous because we both jumped up at once, alarmed by a rough, heavy pounding on the door. I checked my phone, he grabbed his handgun and a pair of boxers. I had 13 texts and 6 missed calls, all from his little brother. My heart throbbed; I panicked.

“I think it’s Jihoon!” I called out as he took the steps downstairs two at a time and ripped the front door open with a ferocious look on his face. It was indeed my little cherub, with two black eyes and a bloody, red splotch on his face. Slammed against pavement. I’d know that wound any day.

I was feeling silly in this jersey now, but survival mode is one hell of a drug. I spotted him from the top of the steps and made it to our welcome mat before Yoongi could manage to put his handgun away. Jihoon was a sobbing, inconsolable mess, rambling on in a tongue of distress almost impossible to decipher. He didn’t want to come here, he didn’t want Yoongi to know, he didn’t want to upset anyone, he didn’t want to get anyone hurt, but we live significantly closer to the school Jihoon goes to than Yoongi’s mother. He’d come here after school frequently, sometimes just asking for a later ride home, sometimes wanting to vent to me for three hours over caffeinated drinks.

It broke _my_ heart to see him like this. It’s hard to describe what it did to Yoongi.

Jihoon isn’t just his mother’s last hope at domestic bliss, he’s Yoongi’s too. We can never be normal. And it’s wonderful, and it’s enjoyable, but the drama will never stop. We won’t have a happy ending, and the stress is infinite. Jihoon wasn’t just the beloved baby brother, he was completely symbolic of the life–the opportunity, the chance to start over–that we all wish we had.

I thanked the heavens that our guests had left in the morning, bringing Jihoon to the couch, carefully taking his sweater off, and grabbing the first aid kit from the downstairs bathroom to start disinfecting his wound. His tears multiplied, but his voice cleared. He got jumped by a couple of guys while walking home from school, and he only walked home from school when their older brother couldn’t pick him up after the school newspaper met. That meant Yoongi would likely double the damage done to Jihoon later, recreating it on their brother instead. That wasn’t my concern.

I asked Jihoon if he thought they did it because of his family association, if he knew who they were. He did know who they were. Nothing else mattered, when Yoongi heard that.

“Baby, please…” His voice was like sugar. He rubbed Jihoon’s neck, which did nothing. “You gotta tell me, it’ll be okay…”

And that was the mantra. _It’ll be alright._ Yoongi said that again and again and it was a lie. He knew well that Jihoon was the most passive, non confrontational person anyone knows. It makes the fact that he got beat up ten times worse, in my opinion, but Jihoon has dreaded this day his entire life. He’d rather have bones broken than have blood on his hands. And it isn’t his fault that his brother is a hot-head who fights fire with fire, but he’ll feel like it... he’ll blame himself as the victim. ‘If only I had walked another way.’

Yoongi felt conviction in his intensity. He knew how Jihoon would feel but still insisted. He stormed into the kitchen, put ice in a plastic bag, and gave it to me with a towel before running upstairs. I hollered. “Don’t take the truck!”

That set Jihoon off. Why couldn’t he take the truck? He could guess it’d be bad. Identification purposes. I can’t avoid that, but I’m not letting our life be destroyed over this. Yoongi waits a good five minutes before a car screeches to a sudden stop out front.

“Wh-what is he gonna do? Please, Jimin, please…” Jihoon was crying again, just as I motioned to put peroxide on his wounds one last time. His tears stung worse. I bandaged him and put ice on his eyes to reduce the swelling, one and then another, again and again. Yoongi left in black leather. I knew there was a balaclava in that jacket. He shot me a loving Bonnie and Clyde look before slamming the front door behind himself. I held Jihoon’s head in my arms in just the right way while he sobbed. Sometimes, in life, you just need to let it out. Time heals all wounds.

Or ends your suffering indefinitely.

When someone asks you if you were with Yoongi while shit was hitting the fan, you always say no. He is too smart, too experienced to go into a crime without a predetermined alibi. Don’t get yourself caught up in another’s web of lies. It isn’t your business to handle. I wasn’t his alibi today, Namjoon was. And I didn’t ask questions. 

I fed Jihoon when he thought his anxious stomach could handle it and stripped him down, giving him a fresh pair of underwear and doing my best to bathe him on the couch with a cool face cloth alone. I disinfected his wound again, put fresh bandages on, iced his eyes, and massaged the sides of his neck. I laid sideways on the couch, and he did the same between my legs, resting his head on a pillow atop my crotch, facing the ceiling while he slept. 

My eyes were bloodshot. It wasn’t unlike Yoongi to not come home after doing something like this. Not because he didn’t want to see me, but because it reinforced his alibi. They’ll say he was with Namjoon before, and he was with him after, and he _even_ spent the night. 

He knows how much I hate being alone overnight. He won’t even text me. I’d never text him first. And I won’t know the specifics until my mind has had time to go for a metaphorical jog. Because they will absolutely, positively connect this crime to Jihoon if those young men told _anyone_ they jumped him, or if it was premeditated at all.

Or ‘they’ would, at least, if the police department wasn’t the Min family’s puppet. That brought me comfort when I put on the nightly news at eleven and saw the headline: 2 Teens Killed in Drive-By Shooting.

No suspects.


	12. Break You Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He pulled the trigger. They weren’t his first and they wouldn’t be his last, but they were just kids._

I shut the television off and rested my head back. It didn’t take long for me to pass out from exhaustion. Between Jihoon’s impressively compact size and my outward musculature, I managed to carry him up to the bed I shared with Yoongi sometime around one in the morning. I tucked him in carefully and slept beside him, and he was still asleep at five when I was awaken by the sound of a noisy car out front. 

Six hours was more than enough rest for me.

I changed into light grey sweatpants, threw the jersey into the hamper, and grabbed another of Yoongi’s handguns from one of our dressers before walking downstairs. There were no lights, no sirens, but I still ducked beneath the living room window and moved the bottom of the curtain as minorly as possible. I recognized the rumble then, when the car finally shut off: the sound of Namjoon’s junkyard on wheels. My heart dropped when I saw that he was alone.

I pulled him inside by the collar of his shirt and shut the door as quietly as possible. I grabbed him by the neck without squeezing and brought him into the stairwell that led to the garage, shut _that_ door behind us, and took him into the workout and laundry room behind where Yoongi’s truck still sat. Only when that metal, fireproof door was closed was I sure that Jihoon wouldn’t be disturbed by my voice, loud like thunder. Namjoon sat on carpet, back to the washing machine, while I yelled.

“Where’s Yoongi?!”  
“He’s sleepin’ at my place, damn. You had to drag me all the fuckin’ way down here to ask that?”  
“Jihoon’s in my bed sleeping right now, so yeah, I did. Trying not to wake him up after his realizing that his older brother murdered two teenagers for beating him up. How the fuck does Yoongi think he’s gonna get off? If anyone knew they jumped him beforehand–”

In all of my worry, I had forgotten–again–that Yoongi’s family had the local police department on a tight leash. Namjoon brought that back up again. I didn’t want to hear any of it, but I had to know every detail. That is my nature. I’m a worrier. It was just a drive-by. Absolute stealth. And it was dramatic, and it was my lover who was a killer. He pulled the trigger. They weren’t his first and they wouldn’t be his last, but they were just kids. Douchebag kids, but a lot of kids are douchebags. Some douchebags change. Sixteen, seventeen-years-old; who could judge them fairly? 

Justice and revenge are synonymous, in my book. I don’t see the difference. Again, I don’t believe in the unquestionable benevolence of law and order, either. The entire human condition is visceral, emotional. And I’m always okay with that when it means drugs, and sex, and money. But when something like this happens, I can’t handle it anywhere near as well as I can handle a pill or a dick or a brand new townhouse. And maybe that makes me as selfish as the ‘man’, as the writers of the law and the oppressors. May-be.

Namjoon seemed drunk. He tried to grab my ass, proposition me. I told him that between the adrenaline and the feelings of conflict, I was nowhere near being in the mood. That’s the thing: open relationships are secure until your relationship, the foundation, feels less than perfect. Then, it isn’t. If you continued with it then, you’d feel like shit. You’d feel like an adulterer. Because you know it’s wrong. I don’t respect ‘instinct’ creating ‘morals’ and that creating the ‘law’, because the law applies to many. But for me, for us, for two people in a relationship, our rules are clear. And again, the adrenaline is the real obstacle. I was worried sick, less for Yoongi and more for Jihoon.

I felt too trapped. I told Namjoon that I should return to my bedroom in case Jihoon wakes up and panics. Wonders where I went. I told him he was welcome to either of the couches, though, as long as Yoongi knows he’s here (I didn’t want Yoongi waking up on his own, either). I asked him if Yoongi drank last night, too. He said no, but he did coke. Namjoon slurred so hard that I wasn’t sure if he was lying or if the alcohol was fresh to his veins, but I decided to believe the latter and demanded he stay the night.

I stayed awake and laid in bed until Jihoon woke up at ten. He was out a good twelve hours, sleeping the fatigue off and physically recovering all the same. I helped him shower, new bandages and the like. I forgot I left the gun out on top of the dresser; I put it there before slipping back into bed. He frowned but remained silent. He didn’t have school today, so I helped him pack his things neatly into his backpack and brought him downstairs. Namjoon was on the couch in his underwear, looking through his phone with tired eyes. Jihoon wasn’t surprised. He followed me into the kitchen and sat at the table while I made eggs and toast and let him feed himself, because he wasn’t my son despite how I felt.

“Do you want to go home to your mom, today?”

He shook his head quaintly.

“Are you afraid of her seeing you this way?”

He nodded.

“Why?”  
“She’ll figure it out.”

She would. _She_ attaches meaning to everything and _always_ assumes the worst of her two oldest. Everything is a crime until proven otherwise. She blames them for everything. And I couldn’t possibly tell Jihoon to lie. He would feel compelled to say he got beat up walking home. By two people. He would feel compelled, if she asked, to confirm that two teenagers had been killed in a drive-by shooting. She would put the puzzle pieces together. She would be mad, having to bite her tongue and be an accessory again, and he would be haunted even further, with his own mother knowing he was the reason two people lost their lives. She would bring it up when she drank. 

“I don’t think you should go home.”

He looked up at me with wide eyes, shocked. I was supposed to be the voice of reason, the person gently pushing him in the right direction. But I didn’t like the thought of him being with her. Having to deal with the pressure, the weight of the world on his shoulders, the expectation that _he_ would be the perfect child and this illusion’s destruction via adjacency to chaos and crime.

Namjoon walked into the kitchen and smiled at Jihoon, who could only lift one side of his lips up in halfhearted reciprocation.

“What do you mean?” Jihoon asked.

Your brother could go to your mom’s house and pack your room up. That’s what I wanted to say. You could live with us until we found you your own little place. You could live with one of Yoongi’s friends. One of us. I thought of Seokjin’s good heart and Hoseok’s goofy, welcoming attitude. 

“Maybe you should stay here for the weekend.” 

He went upstairs after breakfast and I told him I was going to bring Yoongi home. I locked the doors and brought a gun, and I left a gun on the dresser too. Call me paranoid.


	13. In & Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _But he was melting my heart, coddling me, reminding me that scary men with money and power and guns, who are above the law and do whatever they want, are phenomenal people when you’re the center of their universe._

“How ‘bout some road head, though?” I could see the ghostly toothpick in Namjoon’s mouth when he spoke this crudely. It would be improper, in my opinion, to put his misbehavior on blast without first reminding myself of his… err, character flaws. Namjoon isn’t a bad guy, and he isn’t a pig (per se). Sometimes, I think he just has difficulties reading certain social cues. In more specific words, he doesn’t have an _off button_. Typically, I would lean over and suck his dick to completion. I’d also, usually, be happy, content with my life, high, and full. But I’m starving, I’m angry, I’m anxious, and I’m more sober than I’ve been in a very, very long time.

His charm is certainly unique, but there’s a time and place for everything, and _he_ is more of a walking archetype than anything else. He has depth and complexity but is shy about appearing as anything less than a total tough guy. So when I glared and practically spat with my sharp and brief words, he wasn’t upset. He played it cool; he, with my constant badgering, finally focused on the road. 

I had managed to put real clothes on for the trip: ripped white jeans and a red and blue tie-dye tee shirt. I checked my phone incessantly, making sure it hadn’t failed to vibrate. I was worried about Jihoon, and I was worried about Yoongi.

It doesn’t matter who you are. Ending someone’s life is a trying task. I know he’s a murderer. He might not deserve sympathy, but he’s no psychopath. No matter how sure he was that those two boys needed to die, sorting through the aftermath is still emotional labor. It needs to be done.

We arrived some ten, twenty, maybe thirty minutes later. Time felt distant to me. Ethereal. He didn’t live far, but noon traffic on the weekend is never kind. We walked the flight of stairs and he let me into his apartment. He let the door pop open and took a step back, welcoming me first - whether he liked it or not.

Yoongi was in white boxers, disheveled hair, standing in front of the kitchen sink. He had a box of cereal in one hand, the other palm shoveling handfuls into his mouth.

I hate how instinctive it was. I wanted to yell at him, to scold him. To give him the silent treatment, a cold shoulder. But I walked up to him from behind and wrapped my arms around him. He smiled, turned me around, gave me a bear hug and lifted my feet off of the ground, kissing my cheek repeatedly and whispering into my ear.

“I love you.”

Maybe I’m in love with the wrong man, but the day past had been one of the longest of my life. We are _never_ apart. I go with him most places. He leaves on his own plenty for work, comes back six hours later, and we have sex and eat a ginormous dinner. But he was gone. And I knew the way he held me that I was his antidote. My touch had relieved some of his burdens effortlessly.

Overwhelmed by everything, I cried. Sobbed against his chest for a moment, my arms loosely draping across his shoulders. He smiled. I pulled back and wiped my face, pulling my shirt up to wipe it clean. _Don’t do that again._ That’s what I thought of saying, but I knew he was hot-headed and that was fine. He never lost his temper with me. I didn’t know _what_ to say. So I said the most honest thing I could.

“I missed you so much.”  
“I know, baby boy, I know… how is Jihoon?”  
“He’s alright. I’ve been taking care of his physical wounds, at least.”  
“I knew you would, baby.”  
“I told him he could stay the weekend.”  
“Of course, baby. Of course.”

I hated this. I knew I would have to have a serious conversation later. If not to scold him, then to tell him how he made his brother’s wounds ten times worse. How grabbing a gun and venting his anger was wrong, if for no other reason, then because it was selfish with regard to Jihoon’s well-being. The danger of it all. But he was melting my heart, coddling me, reminding me that scary men with money and power and guns, who are above the law and do whatever they want, are phenomenal people when you’re the center of their universe. 

He held the back of my neck and kept our foreheads together until my eyes looked less red. Namjoon barked in the background.

“You two lovebirds done? I need to get y’all back, sick of all this driving and shit…”

Yoongi laughed and raised his voice. “Yeah, cunty. Let’s go.”

I helped Yoongi put his clothing from the day before on and we left. The gun stayed with Namjoon. The drive back, it felt like we were in high school again. Namjoon was happy with a joint in his mouth, playing the radio a little too loud, singing along terribly, talking to Yoongi and prefacing every syllable with a swear. Halfway through the ride, Yoongi was on top of me, his tongue down my throat while Namjoon pulled his dick out and said something about wishing his ride had tinted windows like our truck. We didn’t have enough time to do very much, but on our way out, I bent over the center console from the passenger seat and gave Namjoon’s thigh a kiss. His erection grazed my cheek on the way back out. “Fuckin’ cocktease.”

Yoongi kept his hand on the small of my back while we walked up the front steps and unlocked the front door. The fantasy bliss of reunion would fall away soon when we jogged upstairs and saw Jihoon crying. Sitting at the foot of the bed, his head between his hands. Yoongi turned to me, and the first thing he said was:

“Why did you leave a gun out?”  
“I wanted him to be able to protect himself!”  
“What if the cops came, huh?”  
“What happened to ‘the police department rides my dick’, Yoongi?”  
“I’m sorry.”

The words certainly hurt, but his tone wasn’t too biting. That’s why I wasn’t exactly surprised when he caved so fast. He wasn’t usually one to look at details like that and snap, but this was a time of new stress for both of us. What mattered the most was that I didn’t want to have that argument in front of Jihoon, who we surrounded by sitting on either side of a moment later. He was being logical when he explained the entire situation, laying out what had happened and how he felt. Now, Yoongi had to contend with his brother’s guilt, to convince him that it would be alright. Jihoon would _never_ say anything to incriminate any member of his family or to hurt them in any way. Family was family, and his respect and mutual adoration for his father carried over when his older siblings inherited the business. He always loved Yoongi.

That being said, Yoongi didn’t want Jihoon to spend the rest of his life feeling miserable, guilty, anxious... and he _certainly_ didn’t want said potential stress to derail Jihoon’s success. He does excellently in school, virtually straight marks. If he were to, say, never go to college and end up an alcoholic instead, Yoongi would blame himself. Herein lies the toxic cycle of expectation: anything bad that ever happens to Jihoon ever again that can even _partially_ be blamed on Jihoon himself will be inherited by Yoongi as his own fault. He’ll say the guilt of this was Jihoon’s downfall, and Yoongi did it, so it’s his fault. And Jihoon knows this, so he’ll work even harder to do well. To impress his family, to keep them happy and calm, and this will likely worsen his stress and mental health.

We had more than enough room on the bed that night, for the three of us. But Yoongi still slept on the couch to make more room for Jihoon.


	14. No Rest for the Virtuous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I wish he knew what I knew, with my crooked front tooth and its chipped edge._

Ms. Min didn’t mind if her youngest didn’t return home. She knew he’d be at the library, studying and sleeping in locked toilet stalls at night (beside unused glory holes), having a chaste sleepover with one of his few friends (who always peeked beneath trousers at night), or smiling and observing the cretins of society from a distance at one of his brothers’ homes (in other words, there was mischief and perversion available _everywhere_ \- Jihoon still didn’t partake). That’s what we were to her: degenerates, misfits. Crime wasn’t putting food on the table, shoving money into her mouth anymore, so it was morally bankrupt to her. 

In fairness, she turned to faith when her husband died. A slightly understandable rebound. Better that than to marry another man quickly, or to date a controlling, abusive asshole for the sake of companionship. So I get it. But none were very religious where we came from; when Yoongi wore a cross, it was a fashion statement. Irony in motion. We bought five-hundred dollar rosary beads to use as a loose cock ring. Why? The look. The feeling. The more Bible-thumpers you have calling you evil and sinful and empty, the more fun you have proving them right. Particularly when they relay their ‘love’ from a bearded man in the sky.

See, religion and law are similar. Both create moral high grounds for small-minded, judgmental folks to occupy. They can feel superior, then, because they’re emotionally vulnerable, volatile, small, or cognitively incapable, vapid, in reality. Feebleminded in general. Perhaps weak in both feeling and thought. Both law and religion simplify life and make it less overwhelming. 

The smartest do not boast. The wisest do not judge. And the most capable, they do not flaunt. The strongest don’t flex. They understand the reality of power. They use it when necessary.

Of course, necessity is as debatable as morals are, isn’t it?

Jihoon could run around town on someone else’s back every day of the week. _She_ had three simple requirements: that his grades remain impeccable, that he continue as the editor-in-chief of his school’s student newspaper, and that he show up to church every Sunday. 

The issue here is that he still look injured, and her seeing him like this would expose her to the story and throw another pound of shit at the already brown fan.

I thought it was an issue, at least, until I woke up with Yoongi’s body directly atop my own, his phone buzzing weakly in his hand which settled against my side. He must have moved into the bedroom in the middle of our quaint little nap. I reached down and grabbed it carefully, gently unlocking it with his fingerprint. It was from Namjoon. Someone else had been arrested for the crime. They confessed to it. 

The young man with the short dreads which had no business on his head. He had a hard time getting a job, finding a landlord who would take him. Therein lies the tragedy–the ultimate evil–of the (in)justice system. Once you’re incarcerated, no matter how petty the crime, your life will never be the same. You don’t simply do the time, you become a second-class citizen when you get out too. The painfully tight laws on drugs and other petty violations means that men with good hearts, brave minds, and unfortunate backgrounds end up in hell. And some, like this boy, can’t _wait_ to get back. They see the way the world views them, they struggle, and they return. They pray their friends are still around, they learn willpower around power-hungry and mouthy guards, and they assimilate again. The cycle of misfortune.

But Yoongi was free. His acquaintance would be where they fed him, where he could sleep under a roof and bathe himself, and Yoongi would never be suspected of the crime. And I was free, of the burden of worry and its accompanying anxiety. An anxiety of such depth and breadth that those who conform their entire lives couldn’t possibly understand the way it feels. To fear the rejection of an entire society, an entire world, at once.

I woke Yoongi up with my lips against his own and told him the news. He smiled and said something about the greater good and fell back asleep. His chin was on my shoulder; he was babying himself against me, lithe legs hanging long past my own, slender torso between my arms. Jihoon slept peacefully, I could see. His face was close to my elbow. I didn’t want to wake him up, but church started in an hour, and I didn’t want him in deep trouble with his mother either.

Well, maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to free him. But I’m not so much like my boyfriend. I don’t make decisions regarding the fate of others for them. He’s a big boy.

I slowly slid Yoongi’s half-awake body to the side, away from the other, and kissed Jihoon’s forehead softly. I wanted to ask him if he’d like to throw his entire reformed life away and join the dark side. I wanted to hold his hand and take him to his prom or whatever he wanted. I wanted to be his matchmaker, and to see him be taken care of the way his brother takes care of me. But life isn’t that simple. I didn’t know if he liked boys or girls, or anyone for that matter. I didn’t know what kind of life he wanted to live. I only knew that he liked hugging me, that he wanted to be happy. And that he feared. Feared his mother, feared God. Feared himself the most, and his own potential mishaps. 

The role he fulfilled was drawn, written, by the oppressive forces that be. The man in heaven and the man with the cage. He was a people-pleaser. A yes man. And it hurt me to see, because I was there once myself. Lived for everyone, everything, but myself.

I helped him awaken and fed him, and I took everything off of his face but the skin itself and told him he looked much, much better. Little white lie. I asked him if he really wanted to go to church before either of us had mentioned it. Sunday was a ticking timebomb. He knew when it was Sunday. Even in a coma, I’m sure his right eye would twitch every Sunday an hour before noon. He nodded. I had Yoongi get up, and freshen up to look presentable, in order to take Jihoon to church and drop him off. 

But before they left, I spoke to Jihoon. I pecked him on the lips and I rubbed both of his arms. I wanted him to think about himself more often. To seek pleasure. To listen to his heart. To take care of himself. I wish he knew what I knew, with my crooked front tooth and its chipped edge. With my ears filled with holes and metal. My body and its evasive stretch marks. My bleached hair dyed ruby red, faded to orange, to peach now. His brother’s ginormous tattoos and scattered scars. His broken bones and knife wounds. His cynicism and outbursts. Our _nightmares._

Perfection is a sleepless, thankless death.


	15. Some Kind of Bliss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Don’t doubt this: I enjoyed it all the same. Even the pain._

The sirens started in the distance, swollen like a heartbeat. Their echos became clearer the closer they got. I heard the front door get kicked down and I shut off. I put a towel at the bottom of the door and sat my weights on top of it, which would prevent any gases from entering our room. I shut the lights off and pulled the shades down. I wasn’t going to be the kid who was caught in the crossfire. The kid whose death went reported but neglected. My heart was pounding, and I felt suspended in nausea, like I wanted to vomit from all of the adrenaline. There were so many things that my mind thought my body wanted to do, but none of them were permitted or safe. Cry, pass out. All I managed to do was shake. I felt myself dialing the number, but I had to press clear four times before I could finish it. Why didn’t I use my contacts? It was a force of habit, a matter of superficial secrecy. Like I was keeping something from myself. A bullet broke wood and pierced my chest.

This was my gateway to heaven. I was bathed in an ocean of bliss, a tempest of warm perspiration forming a spiritual cocoon where my skin should have been. Everything was light, red and white. Everything was gone; out of sight, out of mind. The sweetness flooded my brain while it retired. My last hurrah. The final thing I felt was Yoongi’s tear falling on my cheek, tracing a trail of wetness as it fell past the corner of my lips and into my mouth. Everything became a matter of shapes and sizes, like my soul was stretching and contorting. Everything was comfortable. I couldn’t remember anything about my real life. I was simply content.

I never touched the darkness. I revolved around it like a planet, but I was a universe, and it was a minuscule, compact entity. A black hole. When I woke up, I felt disappointed to no longer feel the promise of the blackness. My impending doom was gone, and now, everything was white. A woman in one color yelped when my eyes flickered. The first thing I wanted to do was lift my head and look around; she defeated my neck’s attempts and slid my forehead back with one finger, hushing and shushing something that I could not discern. She ran out of the room as I accepted my instability, keeping my eyes shut as faint pains flooded my chest.

The sharpness I never felt the first time around entered my empty brain. I felt like an addict in recovery. All of the happiness had been sucked from my body, and the world was an empty, hopeless, depressing place. I was still hallucinating, still feeling colors when I felt the bullet enter my abdomen again. Their voices brought me back to reality. She was with another woman and a man, now. He started asking me questions and I did nothing but grit my teeth and struggle with the idea of speaking. There was an emptiness below my left nipple. It rang and called and I hurt, beginning to sob. I heard a beep, and twenty-five seconds later, I started to fade into nothing again. This was entirely grey, instead. Not black and white. I was asleep.

I was napping on the couch, waiting for Yoongi to return from bringing Jihoon to church. My phone was beeping in alert: a text from Hoseok. He just got out of work. He wanted to come over. He wanted intimacy. He wanted to fuck. I told him to come for dinner.

Moving past traumatic stress brings a natural course of recovery with it. Wholesome events of interpersonal splendor. Romantic reunions and the calm which follows the storm of anxiety are addictive. And be sure, I didn’t spend four years studying the arts of philosophical journalism, literary critique, and writing at large to not flaunt a bit of floral prose once in a while. Even if it _doesn’t_ make all that much _real_ sense. It’s hard to understand, but it’s pretty, and it gives you something to think about. Something to decipher, and something to read into.

The euphoria of victory is predictable insofar as that I expected–and wasn’t surprised by–Yoongi’s abrasive return. He pulled his pants down, bent me over the kitchen table, and plowed me with more than half of his girthy length without much preparation. Of course, bottoming is no joke, much less with a man of his bearings, so I didn’t hold out for very long before my moans became pathetic whimpers for mercy. He obliged. Don’t doubt this: I enjoyed it all the same. Even the pain. It did hurt, but it was still erotic, and somehow, intimate. It always feels intimate with Yoongi.

I slid to my knees and opened my mouth, and instead of using me as a trophy, he stood and hung in front of me waiting for the inevitable. My lips all over him, my jaw agape, my tongue swirling and lapping. Kisses on imperfect spheres of nerve, entirely wet inside of my mouth a moment later.

He hooked the corner of my lips with his thumb and pulled me off of his semi-erect head. A smile. He leaned back and grabbed two pastel blue pills from the kitchen counter. He took another step, still naked from the waist down, and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. He put them on my tongue and fed me drink like a dog. I swallowed it, all, and clung to his leg, my chin against his thigh. And I smiled. He played with my hair, and I waited, five, ten minutes, slobbering along the side of his pride, nuzzling the musky perineum between his sensitive, untouched backside and hefty front. The naturally alluring scent was mesmerizing. When I felt the calm wash over me, the relaxation surge through my veins, I started taking him into my throat. My body was limp when he lifted me into his arms after the briefest of unfinished blowjobs, playfully dropping me onto the couch and laughing when I bounced. I slurred something about Hoseok and he seemed pleased, ‘but not before me’. _Never before me._

The grin never left my face. I rotated onto my stomach and pulled a pillow beneath my head. He revealed me from behind and started stroking himself with a slickness, a lubricant, and he laid into me soon after. I screamed and shivered. He wrapped an arm around my throat, flexing his bicep, and kissed the back of my ear. He sucked on the side of my neck and moved fast. I was a mess. A loud, incoherent, trembling mess. I was in a haze. Like making love on a field of poppies. I grew attached to the feeling of his cock’s width grazing past my close together cheeks when he stretched me, and I couldn’t feel much of the discomfort when his balls clapped and he laid completely inside of me. I lifted my hips, the soreness in my waist feeling like a distant dream until he touched my prostate with the most beloved part of his body, and I saw white. Speckles in my vision. But it was love that kept pulling me back, kept planting my hips against his, kept slamming my ass to his waist now. I moved without my own allowance. My pants weren’t down all the way, not at all in the front, so my boxers caught my release and saved the integrity of my pretty, downstairs couch. My insane orgasm spared my neighbors nothing. My voice cracked, my neck tensed. He finished inside of me, pulled out just in time for the last of his strong pumps to shoot a thick, warm rope onto my lower back, and then rested himself between my hefty thighs and grinded between them slowly, as if to comfort my sensitivities.

I felt his warm breath on my neck, his heart pounding against my shoulder blades. I shut my eyes and forgot to open them again, and I fell asleep in a romanced, opiate bliss.


	16. Strict Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He appreciated me as both. He didn’t neglect my more masculine features, he desired them._

I monitor my vicodin intake carefully. I don’t get too attached, never addicted–Yoongi would never allow it–and I don’t take so many that they begin to lose their effect. I do my best to _not_ build a tolerance for any mind-altering substance I consume. Two beautiful, blue pills relax me for something intense (or not intense), knock me out for a good hour and a half nap, and wake me up with few lingering feelings. My body might be seeing this habit as too normal, lately. Two pills only last for one measly event and a couple long moments of sleep, but they do their job. This afternoon, that meant rough sex with a passion unique and inexplicable to those of a strictly sober mind. Romance and love are universal, but drugged out bliss during male-on-male intercourse is something many will never experience and few crave to consistently recreate. Poppers come to mind. For me, while being on bottom specifically. But the feeling doesn’t discriminate.

Put simply, opiates are my favorite. Even pot makes me paranoid at times. Your drug of choice will _never_ make you panic. When you find the one, you’ll never want to land. That’s the downer I need. Real, undebatable relaxation. That’s what vicodin is to me.

The soreness was manageable, so much so that I would still be able to accommodate our humble and happily average friend for dessert in a few hours. I looked forward to it, actually. We were still on the couch, Yoongi and I, but I was facing its back, cuddling against the darkness, and he was spooning me from behind. He had pulled my pants up before sliding me into a favorite position of mine, but now I knew I was dirty. It was registering. Far too dirty, and although it was still early in the day, I felt wrong being in such a messy state. I stumbled to my feet after he rolled onto the coffee table rug, walking upstairs with half of a limp while he rolled a skinny blunt in the kitchen. I washed myself as best I could, at least my backside thoroughly, and put nothing but another pair of cozy sweatpants on for the evening. Yoongi followed suit, jogging upstairs and smiling to me, asking me to sit on the sink while he showered so that we could talk. 

We _could_ have talked about something serious, like the potential consequences of the shooting he had just committed and how much of a close call it was. He would have told me, look at how things turned out, though. We _could_ have talked about the philosophy of something or other to distract ourselves from such a heavy topic. He would have told me, baby I ain’t high enough for this shit, though. We _could_ have talked about my not unnatural but rather overwhelming natural, lustful and unbearable obsession with his penis and our sex. He would have told me, I feel the same, though. In _not_ so many words, of course. He would have went on about it, we would have fucked in the shower, and we’d be right back at square one.

So, we talked about love. Our future. What our marriage would look like, if we ever could. If we want to live in this townhouse for the rest of our lives. _Where_ we’d ideally like to live for the rest of our lives. How imperative location is for his business. How he _feels_ about his business. If he’s happy with his job. If we’re satisfied. 

What kind of ring I’d want, if I got one. A gold band and a diamond. 

I don’t particularly love diamonds, and I know their scarcity is a myth of monopoly. But given our genders and how not-odd they feel (in togetherness) to us but how odd they look to others, I would want a ring that _screams_ ‘a man gave me this ring and I assumed the position of a receiver to accept it’. For many, that makes me the ‘woman’ of our relationship, as does many other things. I find such questions absolutely charming. Reveal your ignorance, beloved. It’s like doing the most complicated maze in the world with a pen, but every wall that leads to a dead end shouts something ignorant at you ten feet in advance.

And I _do_ love gold.

I helped him dry off in this loving, worshipping way that I’ve committed to do frequently since high school because I love it so much. The trick is to focus on hair and cute cheeks and always just barely avoid giving that tempting handjob offer. Learned that lesson in gym class. He put basketball shorts on, black as the opposite of my white sweatpants. We were comfortable now, cozy, but we didn’t have long until Hoseok arrived. He would want to chill after work anyway, but what kind of host would I be if I didn’t have food ready?

I preheated the oven and put a pizza in. We laid across the couch and stared blankly at the T.V. until the timer went off. We both hopped to our feet and I pulled it out and cut it up in a flash. I liked to cook, but he was certain he knew the best way to spice the pizza, and I agreed. So I let him stand behind me, his elbows resting on my waist, his chin on my shoulder, the shape of his dick against my ass, and he put on the same shit I do. Seemed like a lame excuse to hump me for half a minute. That’s Yoongi for you.

It was cut and on plates by the time the doorbell rang. I opened the door and Hoseok nodded to me, fatigued but smiling a little too brightly, likely at my apparel. I nodded back and shut the door behind him. Yoongi’s voice became louder as he offered a friendly welcome, patting Hoseok’s shoulder and giving him half of a hug. Performing. 

Within five minutes he was in his underwear too, red briefs, and we were _all_ sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the T.V.. This time, we were shoveling food into our own mouths too. This was everyone’s place of safety. Where they knew they could do nothing and shoot the shit. That camaraderie only intensifies when you have a revolving door of an open sexual offer to your closest friends. Then, they practically live here, and _yes_ , sex becomes that job again. Doesn’t mean I don’t love it.

We shared the joint in a cigar wrapper Yoongi had made earlier and I took not half a puff. Like I said, I’m not a huge fan of it. I have to be in the mood for it. Yoongi and Hoseok shared it, though, and Hoseok doesn’t get many opportunities like this, so he was excited. Yoongi always just gave it to him, never asked for money or anything. Maybe it was our longtime friendship, maybe it was an acute awareness of what it’s like to be so poor and never get to have any fun because you can’t afford it, or maybe that was just the good in Yoongi’s heart.

Hoseok also had a way of becoming something I never became after smoking. For me, it was a contemplative drug. I would think and think, and sometimes, become a selective mute. Like it was an effort to voice anything, and I could never articulate what I was thinking. Yoongi smoked so much that he had become particularly sensitive to different strands, more so than my blind running self. He’d enter a plethora of different states in the same night if the finer nuances of a flavor allowed for it. Hoseok was another story. He held himself back so much in day-to-day life that he finally became that feral fiend of need Yoongi and I lived our lives as when he smoked.

He whispered something to Yoongi, something about permission and then pressed his face against the crook of my neck. Started kissing the skin, my chest, the outline of a pectoral and then my abdomen. He appreciated me as both. He didn’t neglect my more masculine features, he desired them. I slipped onto my back and prepared myself for round two of couch sex, unaware that Yoongi would grab the lubricant and return naked himself (I had been stripped by Hoseok’s eager hands while paying less attention). He sat behind Hoseok and I lifted my legs back, and our guest didn’t wait a moment to take me in a missionary position. All was well. As I’ve said before, Hoseok’s size and shape are more than manageable, and in a position like this, his downward curve rubbed my special bundle of sensitive nerves just the right way to keep me moaning.

Yoongi supported himself on his knees behind Hoseok, even more generously slick and pushed inside of him with a dull roar. I felt Hoseok throb inside of me, his sharp cry of pain and shock and building pleasure leaving his body a flimsy mess over mine. The bodies stacked together, and he kissed me when he managed to steady his breath, while not making a dramatic noise (seldom). I wasn’t sure how he felt, to be inside of one and to have the other inside of _him_. The marijuana hit me when I started thinking of his gender in this configuration, and the unusual speckle of jealousy came from the same bud in my mind. I turned my head to the side and let him focus on my neck instead, but Yoongi noticed the thoughtful face and laughed. 

When it sounded like Hoseok couldn’t handle the largest anymore, Yoongi pulled out and stood beside my face instead, stroking himself out over my beauty and–without warning–unloading too. It was thinner than what had filled me earlier, but there was just as much of it. Remarkably so. The sight of my face covered in semen must have done it for Hoseok, the inexperienced lover who wouldn’t know vigor if it smacked him in the face (or fucked him in the ass and used pain to prolong his eager orgasm, which I guess we just tried - clearly doesn’t work). He pulled out like the docile gentleman he is and finished on my stomach. I felt cold sweat dripping down my forehead. I shut my eyes, swallowed harshly, struggled to catch my breath. I felt a towel hit my chest a moment later. I used it on my face first, naturally. I wasn’t high enough to shovel it all into my mouth with two fingers. If I was high enough, I’d do the same with Hoseok’s, too, and then milk his hypersensitive flesh dry in my mouth and leave him begging me for mercy. But I was far too sober for a threesome. It didn’t make sense, but feelings seldom do.

Hoseok did most of the cleaning. Dressed me, too. He laid between my legs when he was done. When I flipped over onto my stomach to snooze on the couch. Yoongi pulled my sweatpants down again to reveal my plump ass and started kissing at a cheek. Hoseok slid his tongue inside of me and thought he was going to finish me as such. So I faked an orgasm and didn’t give him enough time to see I hadn’t spoiled my sweatpants, racing the clock upstairs and passing out in our bedroom.


	17. In Bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _That’s why we call everyone we don’t like or don’t agree with crazy. We don’t want to believe we’re capable of the same things, so they must be different._

Since we own and live in a townhouse–and it _is_ all we own, the only place we stay–we don’t have a backyard. Not that I ever really wanted one; haven’t ran a lap and giggled since I was ten. We wouldn’t have kids, not with our lifestyle, no matter how bad either or both of us wanted one (or fourteen). We do, however, have a decent deck. Sliding door in the dining space just beside the kitchenette, it’s typical. We have some chairs back there, a little table, and in the corner with the most fence and the most sun, I have a single plant. The pot is large, because they are tree-like in stature and can grow up to ten feet tall. Though I doubt mine will, it is gorgeous in how it towers beside our outdoor lounging place and adds an exotic, decorative flair to our open living space even from the inside. I’ve pulled it closer to the middle of the deck as the weeks passed, like a money tree. It’s grown bigger and bigger with little warning, becoming a centerpiece instead of a sideshow. Watching the gargantuan bush grow with my help is satisfying. Even if it is tiny in size compared to its ancestors and relatives, it is healthy. Its flowers are always many, and they are _always_ in great shape.

They’re called “angel’s trumpets,” a perfect cluster of beautiful flowers. A nightshade by any other name would smell as sickly sweet. Roman politicians used to secretly feed one another the seeds of this plant to silently eliminate competition. Simple exposure alone, a lick or a cozy encounter, could conjure hallucinations in a toddler’s body and mind. A cup of brugmansia tea, made with these petals and other fleshy green parts, is enough to paralyze, haunt, and even kill a person. Medicinal uses are almost entirely external and dermatological in nature. Aches, pains, inflammation. But ingestion is feared due to severe toxicity. In incredibly small amounts, internal use can trigger strategic vomiting and act as a less than pleasant–but still effective–sedative.

The ‘high’ from these aromatic plants is extremely uncomfortable. Terrifying. One could brew a potion of uncontrollable mind control with a single flower: violent fits and temporary bouts of insanity. To feel as if the unreal is real, and then to forget the ultimate fear. Being totally out of control and feeling as if you are the only normal one left. 

Get fucked up. Really high, enter mania somehow. When you come back down, you’ll understand what it means to be lost. You’ll be humble, because then you’ll know. That’s why we call everyone we don’t like or don’t agree with crazy. We don’t want to believe we’re capable of the same things, so _they_ **must** be _different_. We other them, and we sit in the darkness they left behind.

The angel’s trumpets are deadly, insidiously mischievous, and they are evil. But they smell so, _so_ fine.

The morning was cruel, and I slept late again to recuperate from our hellish week. I woke up periodically through dawn and early noon, feeling as if nothing but pure fatigue itself had come to make me ache and sore before allowing me to fade back into heavy slumber once more.

Yoongi and Hoseok woke up much earlier than I did. Went downstairs, rolled a fatter blunt, and ordered themselves food. I stumbled downstairs when they were on the couch at one in the afternoon, lazily fell into Yoongi’s lap, and took a huge bit of his ham and cheese submarine sandwich. There was mayonnaise on it. The taste was divine. He looked at me, jaw agape, eyes wide, while Hoseok laughed behind me. I chewed and swallowed. I had been a vegetarian for eighteen months prior to that bite.

“Babe, what the fuck…”  
“Eh.” The noise was garbled through the grease, my swollen lips wet with light olive oil from the bread.   
“Does this mean we can start going to that fried chicken place down the street now?”  
“Sure.”

I spent two hours in the bathroom and cleaned it from top to bottom when I was done. Neuroticism. I showered, twice, and when my stomach settled, I raced down to the kitchen to shove leftover pizza into my mouth. I wish the microwave worked faster. 

Hoseok left sometime during my physical breakdown because he had work again today. 

I laid out on a pool chair we had on the deck, counted the angel’s trumpets. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. The flowers were huge. They cast their own shadow and overwhelmed the stench of marijuana which drifted from open windows out front. Plants have lives too. They’re alive. They grow. They have cycles. They’re children and then adults, and then they die. They produce something. They bear a legacy. They do better under certain conditions. They need sun and water to survive, but better dirt helps. Some farmers say talking to their peach trees brings them more fruit. Maybe they have feelings, too. And putting a plant in a pot stunts its growth. Funny thing about cages...

And just like animals, not all plants are peaceful. Not all plants do nothing but exist and offer their meat and bones to predators. Some plants are evil. Selfish. Some plants refuse to open up. You can’t take even a nibble out of _some_ plants.

Growing up, I always thought that angels were selfless, beautiful creatures. I discovered later that they were actually quite ugly. Hideous, viscerally scary. The angel shakes you with a stare, makes your survival instinct ring like an alarm. Angels are their Gods’ bards. There’s only one kind of angel. But if you bite into an angel’s trumpet, you’ll die.What kind of an angel is that?


	18. Rabbit Hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _His reputation always preceded him. He was a part of a mob dynasty, and as his lover, so was I._

Yoongi’s club, _Quake_ , is like the nine circles of hell all wrapped up into one nightlife cesspool. He bought it with the lump sum inheritance their father left him when the prospering patriarch passed away a good few years back. Off the books. Yoongi preferred a slow, steady, and reliable income front to hide drug funds with, rather than the constant work of offshore bank accounts, insurance fraud, and opening countless cover stores and businesses. That’s what his older brother did: the eldest sibling lives a riskier, grandiose life of sure crime. We’re wealthy, healthy, but he’s _rich_. 

He’s richer right now than we will ever be, but he’s also worked with men and women–but predominantly men, if we’re being honest–who have committed evils which register as such well beyond _just_ the scope of the law. _He_ is morally bankrupt. I find myself grateful for only having to deal with comparatively petty street crime. Yoongi sells and manages sellers and broader regional drug trafficking, hires exotic dancers and sex workers, and dabbles in the arms trade at most... but even that is still nothing compared to what I know he could be doing instead - what his own _brother_ does instead.

Quake isn’t just a nightmarish maze of the emotional variety, no. If it is a square, then the bottom third of the building, furthest away from the entrance, is filled with storage and backrooms. A couple seedy offices, V.I.P. spaces. Other mysterious, compact abodes. The front third is a typical club, with music and musical entertainers and nothing else but a bar. The ‘middle’ of this theoretically simple infrastructure shape is disguised as an eccentric restaurant. A small kitchen, tables, strippers not on a runway but in decorative cages which hang from the ceiling, or on thematic, aesthetically pleasing pedestals. An open space for lounging, hookah, and creepier deals. Anyone can come to club Quake, but it takes prestige, experience, wealth, or familiarity to get you into its midriff. To move beyond that, you’d have to be either a highly trusted employee, an insider, or a customer. 

There are bedrooms in the back, among other things. The building is quite large, and there _is_ as much going on as it sounds. Everyone who works there is kept in the dark. Chefs, waiters, bartenders, security. The list goes on. Unless you’re the one sucking a dick or giving a naked lap dance or whatever else, you can only _suspect_ the multilayered truth. It is an impeccably subtle, stealthy, and shady operation. We have a huge neon sign out front (green text, “QUAKE” and a purple graphic of a broken road behind it), an oddly concave roof above us, and a few nooks and crannies all around which would make the place look a bit more like a star than a square from space. But that’s the gist of the layout, and a simplified version of what my poor Yoongi has to put up with.

Of course, he hires managers. For the girls (and boys) in virtually nothing, for the kitchen, for the bar. An entertainment booker, a promoter. If you can start off with a lot of money, you can get big like that and not have to do much work yourself. Fast. Many months, he’ll check in seven nights a week. At times, he keeps it to a call or a text and trusts those who run the place on his behalf (and his dime, too). It is still a lot of responsibility, but I know that he handles it well because of how easy running the place has become. Its resounding success as a club–the only thing it’s formally known as–has also helped to put his mind at ease. _Quake_ is a success, and it’s perfect for him, and for us, in all of the best ways.

The club remains dark, and the lights seem to prefer deep and royal shades of red, purple, and blue. The restaurant has a lot of warm orange, yellow, and green, as if it were amidst a desert oasis despite lacking a consistent theme. The backrooms are entirely obsidian. Dark, heavy neutral colors and ubiquitous purple like a blackish, radiant gem. 

I don’t visit often. Our boys, when they were looking for full-time grunt work, they wanted to be at Quake. Waiter, bartender, anything. The image aligned with where many of them are now. Yoongi said no. That it was an inherently dangerous place, and that he wouldn’t want to put any of them in harm’s way. But they visit as beloved and well-known customers still, because it is an alluring place. The people, the product, the service, the lights.

And by holy thunder, those _lights_.

In the bedrooms and the lounges, the black lights in some of the backrooms are what made me want to strip for a while. Yoongi would never let me, of course, but he would happily accept the role-play session wherein I give him a lap dance and pretend to be coerced into a sexual encounter. And he didn’t mind using my naked torso in advertisements, of course. I’m built, or something. That’s my technical job title, so that we can both ‘work’ to legally claim–and legally spend–even more. A _model_. 

The intimate tension beneath a black light is intoxicating. I have been aroused to many different degrees, my lust measure wrestling different magnitudes and meeting different height notches on a domestic wooden wall. Pumped from the floor. The black light’s call, infliction, isn’t one of traditional feelings of sex. Everything feels foreign, there. Alien erotica. Like you’re in another dimension, a world that doesn’t keep record. You lose track of time, the space you’re in seems infinitely longer, and you shake in place if you stay still for too long.

When I go to Quake, I am a celebrity. The president’s wife on Yoongi’s arm. And there are no governments threatening to shut us down or missiles looming in the distance. Many district police officers frequent the restaurant. I walk around in whatever I want, saying whatever I want, looking however I want, doing my heart’s desire good. The building, what well-decorated shell it is, inherits its life from its visitors and inhabitants. It strikes me, now, that the harsh but seductive lighting feels just like that: like a bloodsucker. Social deviation of any variety always feels particularly sweet, but spending hours in a group of your own kind, enabled and dried, is _vampiric_.

We were walking through the club with an armed escort when a drunk, underage looking girl smashed a glass bottle over a man’s head. Probably her boyfriend, or a creep trying something. It shattered, shards flying every which way like shrapnel from a grenade, and it certainly is a matter of luck that one didn’t hit either of us in the eye. Yoongi had been smoking a cigarette, alerting simple minded civilians of his presence by breaking a strict club rule (there was a special smoking room near the bathrooms). It was more than halfway gone, but after seeing me flinch from the close impact, he took it out of his mouth and had every intention of burning a scar into the girl’s neck. I shot him a look, and he spit on her instead. Had them both removed.

I smoked the rest of the cigarette and threw it away in a transitional hall. Something separated the loud club from the quiet restaurant, to reinforce the illusion and to give security ample space to buffer the divide.

Traversing the restaurant wasn’t a challenge. Amongst the backrooms, Yoongi had a thoroughly locked, windowless office; equal parts handy in utility and flashy in appearance. The style reflected his own perfectly, in ways beyond the simple decorating that owning a typical home comes with. The townhouse was mine, a voice of moderation, and this was his. The Wild West, if it owned a mansion in the twenty-first century but still called the shots. The safe was in the back, and the walls were covered with guns and swords. 

Unless he was making a deal with someone, he always smiled in his office. And during such a deal, he really only got off on flaunting his power and appearing much scarier than he is with a blank or intimidating expression. They always already knew of his father. His reputation always preceded him. He was a part of a mob dynasty, and as his lover, so was I. With certain crowds, he’d come to the meetings shirtless, flashing the gargantuan dragon mural drawn upon his back in ink. His office epitomized his ego. My visits aren’t particularly common, but it feels as if I can’t count the number of times he’s bent me over that desk and been much more assertive than usual.

We all have our cross to bear.


	19. Too Far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I would cry of joy whenever one of the adults gave me a can of mango seltzer. I was immortal in the simplicity of my own happiness._

My aunt and uncle own a farm on the countryside. As a kid, my parents used to suffer through the hour long drive like it was an unscheduled colonoscopy: grunting and groaning, fighting and arguing while I stared out the moving car’s window and lost track of time. The landscape changed gradually like a gradient, from the dark grey concrete jungle to the brick red rural township to beautiful, light green fields and the stale yellow color of hay. 

I played in the mud, back then. I wasn’t afraid to get dirty at all. I didn’t think about filth and comfort because I hadn’t conceived of them yet. I’d ride horses and stare at my cousin’s pet chicken. I helped them paint their new barn, and by help, I mean I didn’t likely do much but looked cute doing whatever it _was_ that I did. (I am the youngest of my family. The baby. Yoongi says it’s easy to tell because I’m spoiled and broke with expensive taste. He’s kidding.) We went fishing, ate sandwiches with whole grain bread and all natural peanut butter. I would cry of joy whenever one of the adults gave me a can of mango seltzer. I was immortal in the simplicity of my own happiness.

And if we got there early while my farmer relatives were still at the local market, we’d sit in the grass and stare at the trees. Sometimes, they’d let me jump on the trampoline all by myself. I would lay there, on the plastic which smelled like pine, when the clouds were dark. There’s nothing more calming and heavenly than staring at the sky while it rains. The chords make for an unlikely mattress, and they care for every inch of your body and offer support. The scents were natural; the cool air and gentle water droplets felt divine. I’d love to do that again. I bet it’d feel even better while high. My kind of high.

I miss my family, sometimes.

Last night, I had a dream. And I don’t know if I truly experienced it as it seared itself into my brain, but I remembered it vividly when I woke up. I was walking through the club, through the backrooms, and it was like a forest wherein every turn repeats itself. A mystical maze with no way out. I finally opened yet another identical door and walked into Yoongi’s office. I saw him standing over a woman, inside of her. I can feel the tears swelling just thinking about it. He looked at me and smiled, and I felt so betrayed. 

Logically, I’m not sure if it’s because him being with a woman would make me feel inadequate, if it was because it wasn’t one of our dear and familiar friends, or if it was because I had no idea who she was and felt like I was being deceived. I don’t like secrets. I don’t even like surprises, or unexpected gifts. They make me feel out of control. The slightest sound before a greeting when I answer the phone can make me panic for the safety of the person on the other side of the line. Why would they call _me_ in a time of emergency?   
Our relationship hasn’t always been open, and the grounds for which it is are shaky and undefined at best. It started for the sake of threesomes with people we _know_ , the boys. As long as it was with one of them, he didn’t care how it went down.

But now, things were different. We had met people, through the club, who flirtation and other affections felt simple around. I inherit lopsided autonomy in this deal, because I have intercourse with other men, and he only goes beyond kissing with the boys. That feels normal, but this doesn’t. This and that. I’m being selfish. I would have no right to be jealous if everything was everything and I never slept and it was all _real_.

Would I?

Seems odd, so I talked to him today. We decided that transparency is really the only rule. We trust each other, love each other, and _respect_ each other. If it isn’t someone we’re so comfortable with, if it deviates from what we know, then we’d ask. And saying no for whatever reason is simple. And if either of us ever want to make things closed again, then we can. We aren’t polyamorous. Our love is honestly a monogamous one. The open factor only applies to sex.

Remembering that dream was a terrible experience. I didn’t want him to touch me even though I had stayed lifeless in bed for twenty minutes. Jealousy is such a powerful drug, considering how absent it typically is from my waking life. I don’t think establishing mutual respect, care, and transparency was a transgressive act. We’ve always held those assumptions dear. It’s not about doing something and then going home and talking about it, it’s about bringing it up beforehand. 

When my mother used to have her mind, she would remind me to make sure I didn’t become my own worst enemy. People like me are the reason why having everything isn’t always as straightforward as it seems. The best relationships are plagued by doubt and unnecessary cynicism. And that’s a part of relationships, too: banking on the health and secrecy of two human minds.

My heart still hurts when I think about how real his smile felt. But it wasn’t real–not to me, at least–so it wasn’t my problem. I told him about it and he laughed. I smiled and went to the bathroom. I ran the shower. I cried on the toilet.

Yoongi calls smoking on the daily ‘taking his medicine’. I guess popping pills is the same for me. I took two and finally calmed down, washed my face and actually used the shower to clean my hair and clear my red eyes. At first, the urge to breakdown was suppressed. Dull, dim. Quiet. 

Then, it evaporates entirely. Every time. 

“Do you care if Jungkook comes over lately?” His voice was ravenous and distant, muffled. I was soft like ambrosia:  
“I told Jin I’d see him this weekend.” I opened the door with a towel around my waist. In his boxers, he smiled.  
“He can come tomorrow, yeah?”  
“Yeah, sure.”  
He grabbed my cheek. Wet his lips, smiled at me. I arched my lips back. “What’s wrong? That dream?”  
“Felt real.” I shook it off, physically shook my head. Didn’t matter to me anymore. “Can we get chicken wings?”  
“Damn, really going hard on this meat game again, huh? I know you love _some_ kinda meat.”  
“I thought I was your evil little boyfriend? Can’t surprise you too much.”  
“Aww, Jimin–”

I stuck my thumb to the roof of my mouth and walked past him. He slapped my ass on my way to the dresser. I sat on the edge of our bed and crossed my legs, and I took the towel off and put sweatpants on and curled back up in the blanket. 

I don’t know if I’ll ever reach that height again. Laying on the trampoline, a bright sky above dark clouds, rain tickling my face and cooling my entire body. 

When you get older, you want different things. Relaxation from adulthood. Innocence is gone. The farm is _long_ gone. I still get what I want. I wanted a home, I got it, an easy life, everything; a cute twink who’s taller than me, who’s a top, who has a husky voice and a huge, thick dick, and I got that too. I get everything I want. He deals drugs and has a sexy tattoo but sometimes I think that the true gateway of potential and freedom in our relationship is my freedom to overdose whenever I’d like. Because I don’t own a trampoline, it doesn’t rain much anymore, and death is never more than ten minutes away. If you know what you’re doing.


	20. A Lonely Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I studied the way the sunlight fought to break through the closed shades, laying on their furthest side instead. Laying helplessly, like I did._

It’s no surprise that I fell asleep there, wrapped in a blanket still warm from Yoongi’s–my obsession’s–body heat. The pills certainly didn’t help. Nothing kept me awake.

I didn’t expect to wake up with Seokjin, of all people, on top of me. For a moment, I wondered if I had slept through a day entirely. The remnants of a formal outfit still hugged his tall build: low-cut black socks covered his feet, he still had one arm in a white button up shirt, and tan khakis lingered beneath his aching need; they were a canonical garb in the order of public school teachers everywhere, but I only liked them when they showcased a hefty bulge or were pulled down entirely. There was a belt of a darker shade of brown, leather, which reinforced the fabric and made for a sturdy base, useful when the waistband of his dress pants held and pushed against his heavy sack from beneath like a pushup bra. Equally sizable and impressive in comparison with his breathtaking length, the musky orbs appeared even larger than usual in size when pressed closer to the broad hilt of his sex. The creamy surface–warm, tingling flesh–must have been firmer than usual then, the length above not dwarfed by the heftiness. 

I was entirely naked, not as I had been before. The epiphany that someone had stripped me in my sleep caught me off guard and aroused me to no end. Too often in life did I find myself turned on by otherwise disturbing things. This is the joy of trust and easygoingness. Somewhere along the way, with my legs spread entirely and resting against the bed, my body must have been shaken too actively by Seokjin’s vigorous hips. He was humping and grinding against the chiseled definition of my stomach’s sturdy musculature, plump lips peppering kisses along my neck while I licked my own and moaned. I knew dearly, predicted again, the siren’s call of a wailing scream which would follow; slick with his own premature ejaculate and evidently warmed lubricant, he pushed inside of me. I was looser than I had known, clearly prepared in my drug induced haze with some gentle foreplay I _know_ my body liked, and I accepted his monstrous gift without hesitation. He slammed into my prostate, whether on purpose or by accident, as the eccentric shape of his inexplicably remarkable tool always did. 

My mouth opened widely, and my eyes shut tight. My chest puckered forward while the small of my back arched itself, stomach sinking into my ribs as my erratic breathing pattern overcame my senses. I felt that special bundle of sensitive nerves deep inside of me swell, or so I thought with such conviction, and struggled to even _think_ about opening my eyes. I couldn’t control the noises coming from my shaky body, and I had no desire to either. My legs couldn’t hook around his waist; my arms couldn’t lift from the bed. My eyes watered and my toes curled. I spoke unrepeatable, filthy terms of endearment and realized we weren’t alone when I heard Yoongi’s laugh in the background. His words were loud like a god bellowing into my consciousness, dismissing the fuzzy white nose of my heavenly submissive space and roaring a judgement of rapture:

“He _loves_ to talk shit in bed.”

When the wrinkles for slits above my nose finally unlocked, a heavy set of tears flowed down either of my temples. I knew why his voice echoed in my head, then, because I felt the pungency of marijuana stinging my eyes. The room was filled with smoke, pollution so prevalent you could quite literally cut through it with a knife. I knew Jungkook’s response was spoken just as clearly, but I couldn’t make out what he said. Each syllable bounced from one side of my brain to the other. I heard each sound but couldn’t understand. My hips started bouncing, from the bed to Jin’s stomach, waves of violence as I climaxed and did so repeatedly. Every deep breath was followed by a cough and then a pathetic whimper. The noises of bodily panic but mental sex were cyclical as I laid in a fishbowl of attention. Pot in the air, someone else’s sweat drenching my body and triggering my own. I had no idea Seokjin was wearing a condom when he came inside of me, pulsations traveling from his tight balls to the bright red tip. I only figured it out when he pulled back and let me gape while snapping the latex from his manhood, putting the open end to my dangling tongue.

I was tired like a dog, and I didn’t close my mouth when his seed started to drip. All of it, a snail’s pace crawl down my throat. I swallowed it all and looked him in the eyes. He looked high, not just red and bloodshot but out of his mind. He silently, unknowingly promised me that he would remember the destruction he brought upon me when he kissed my dirtied lips and smiled at me. Still in his senses; still sober enough to care; still showing me more of his true colors by doing something like this. Something I never thought he’d have in him. Something I had no idea he was interested in.

I never got a story. I didn’t need one. Yoongi called them both during my nap and had them both come over. That probably took an hour. Seokjin just got out of work, clearly. Only takes thirty minutes to get fucked up like that when you’re smoking multiple blunts in a closed room. Our bedroom. My favorite, my softest, my cleanest navy blue towel stuffed along the bottom of the door to make this a den.

My head fell to the side. I studied the way the sunlight fought to break through the closed shades, laying on their furthest side instead. Laying helplessly, like I did. Seokjin sat up along the bottom of the mattress and rubbed one of my feet in his lap. I must have been a terribly lecherous sight for them. The kind that leaves an impression. The kind that makes a memory. In a sudden, mountainous pile of self-resentment, I found solace and redemption in knowing that three men would masturbate to the thought of me like this. The thought of _me_. They’d remember this and they’d use it again and again, for years and years. Years and years. 

For years and years, I’d remember this.


	21. Eclipse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I was relaxed, and when the moon rose at just the right angle and the light illuminated his face, I felt like I was in a dream._

Relying on the gym would mean that I’d never work out, lose a hold of the habit, and watch my shape vanish into thin air alongside my daily schedule. But weights and simple cardio got boring sometimes, so I wasn’t against going out, paying a single fee, and punching some bags for a while. Maybe monthly. I didn’t want to know if I’d end up sitting on a toilet with my pants up for three hours at the end of that journey, though, and I wanted my mouth healthy, my head on straight, and my lips away from holes of all varieties. Just for now. 

I was worn out, but for all that my body ached, my mind resented me more. I rolled onto my stomach, that day. The day before today. Yesterday. And I lifted my ass in the air like a whore, and I let Yoongi plow me. I screamed into the pillow. He finished inside of me. Jungkook used his seed like lubricant and plastered my back in thick ejaculate when he was done with me. And my muscles, my back muscles, my torso muscles–as built, trained, familiar, experienced, and skillful as they were–gave out. I fled into a lessened state of consciousness and dreamed about a black lake. Not of sludge, but of dark water. I floated on it, and when I woke up, they were drunk. There was a dirty towel and a sticky, crusted face cloth on the floor, and I felt the flippant attempt of inebriated hands on me all at once - a memory of touch from my sleeping body.

Dramaturgy is the sociological idea that everything we do is conditional. Our behavior, our attitudes, who we are, our lifestyles, what we say, speak, wear… the list goes on infinitely. Everything about us, the entire acting conscious, is just that: _acting_. Performative. We fulfill roles. Above the unreachable unconscious and the passively functioning subconscious, the conscious–following this philosophy–relies entirely on a chameleon process that _none_ of us can fully identify, dissect, or combat. Herein lies the value of the instinct. Listening to your gut, or your heart, or your intuition. I still think mental health issues can hinder this, and that this cannot entirely disassociate itself from the dramaturgical consciousness, but perhaps our feral thoughts necessarily tap into our survival drive. Other animals form order, but they don’t deal with constructed realities, and they would ignore these realities while hunting or being hunted even if they did.

In other words, the need to perform is based on the fact that we are social creatures. We rely on communities, and therefore, we assimilate without even knowing it. I believe that, following this, your ‘gut feelings’ are inspired by a survival instinct and not by this social need, and because of this they are not tainted by something not true to oneself. They are not misguided by the need to perform. What your gut tells you to do, that’s the real you. 

Yoongi’s gut told him to murder two teenagers for jumping his little brother. Namjoon’s gut tells him to drive around and smoke when he’s sad. My gut told me that I didn’t like being caught off guard, but I told myself that I did. And I believed myself. The anxiety is visible; the darkness is real. If I were to listen to my _own_ guidance and read it like a fairy tale, I would pick up on the heaviness in my voice, the tone of my thoughts, almost immediately. Because in the present and in retrospect, it’s obvious to everyone but myself. 

Fake people are easy to sniff out. Being fake, performing, isn’t always a refined skill. It isn’t always a beautiful performance. And drugs change that. Drugs hinder peoples’ senses, give them excuses, and help them justify it when someone else is behaving oddly too. Oh, I’m just high. Oh, _they’re_ just high. But we’ve had sex sober before, and everyone’s seen the way my upper teeth stretch past the rest of my mouth when I stick my head forward to laugh, so this _must_ be genuine. Our relationship is genuine. Any second thoughts are blamed on the drugs. And all of a sudden, it’s complicated. It’s guilty, messy work, it’s busy work. It’s pointless. 

It’s pointless.

I left when Yoongi, Jungkook, and Seokjin’s wired frenzy ended with them crashing in our bed. Limbs sprawled out, bodies thrown about. It still smelled like pot and semen when I left. I put black on, basketball shorts and a muscle shirt, and I left. Taehyung picked me up and we drove out to a dead end behind the mall, near train tracks. Far from the mall, actually, and no one was there. But that was our direction, the road we took. 

No one came there during the day, and the people who came there at night were harmless. They’d sit in their cars and smoke and talk. We didn’t smoke, or drink, or do anything. Not then. But we laid in the back of his car and cuddled and talked. We put a pillow beneath our necks and when we managed to both find the perfect position at the same time–that proper angle for your head with which you could easily fall asleep–we locked lips. His kiss surrounded by upper lip and sucked on it, lips grazing the bottom of my nose, tongue touching my lip. Nursing on my lip, lapping at it. A small noise or sweet saliva gave him life. His upper hand slipped beneath my shorts and grabbed my ass, but he couldn’t surround even one side entirely with a palm, and he didn’t push further. He just wanted to feel the softness, the warmth against his hand. Wanted to know he wasn’t alone, wasn’t dreaming.

I felt him grow against me, and I was content with leaving it at that. His jeans and my shorts offered two layers of cloth, thick and thin respectively, but we still rubbed against one another. And it was slow and lazy, as if we were still trying to fall asleep, or were happy with pretending that we were trying to fall asleep. He wanted to know if I wanted him to take me home; it was getting late. I said no. He asked if I was afraid of being caught, I said no. He asked if it was okay if he kissed my neck. I said yes. And he did, and I moaned. Moaned a real moan. I was relaxed, and when the moon rose at just the right angle and the light illuminated his face, I felt like I was in a dream. It felt distant. The darkness kept my senses at a distance. 

I asked him if he thought it was bad to do things for attention, or to let things happen for attention. He said he thought it was normal. We laid silent and he kissed at my chin, my neck, his lips dragging slowly. Every soft, warm kiss left a wet pop when he pulled back. A quiet one, and a trail of spit or a mark.

I asked him how much he talked to himself. He said he thought he did it a lot. I talk to myself a lot, and sometimes, I feel like I’m extorting myself. I’m threatening myself, shaming myself for having complex thoughts and, more so, for not sharing everything that crosses my mind. Maybe it’s a matter of esteem. I don’t respect myself to think I’m fully allowed to have those thoughts. To think to myself. To bear doubt and to still be content with that which I doubt. 

I told him about my dream. All of it. How he was a shy, bashful boy. How he dated Jungkook - the unbelievable reality wherein Jungkook’s mother actually kicked him out. He laughed out loud at that. I told him that when he was hurt in the dream, that was my first intuitive hint that I was dreaming. I was worried more than the real me would have been for such a character. But since it was him, since it was us as a group, I was a caring figure. I knew him better than I was actively aware of, at the time. I told him about the way Namjoon and Hoseok behaved, and I told him I was dating Yoongi and Seokjin both. It was just a dream. And he asked me if my open relationship would ever open like _that_ , and I said no. I stuttered, but I still managed to say no without appearing reluctant. And it was the truth. I wouldn’t even _want_ that. But now, I started to wonder why.

Just thinking about Yoongi’s face makes me happy. The complexities of our relationship and the complications of the things we do are unavoidable. None of them are fatal. I should allow my own thoughts and I should know that thoughts can be intrusive, too. That I need not respect all of my own thoughts, but I should respect myself and allow myself to _have_ them. But that doesn’t change the fact that sometimes, I think I’m the only person who wonders how other people _feel_. It can be exhausting, no? Seeing for the blind, speaking to the deaf. When you feel like nobody understands the world, life, the way you do. Everyone’s chasing their own pleasure principle and I’m very much trying to balance my own with theirs. And I know when I’m being emotional, sensitive, manic, but that awareness doesn’t change the authenticity or presence of those feelings. Quite frankly, I don’t think it takes away from their fairness or trueness, either. 

I ruined our flawless position–or my part in it, so our shared flawlessness–to pull back and text Yoongi. When he woke up, he’d know that I wasn’t in trouble or doing anything odd, but rather that I was with Taehyung. And Taehyung was with me. He drove me back to his apartment, and we shared a shower. Smiles and laughs. It was all smooth sailing. And we laid down in his bed, and I was thrilled and exhilarated at the thought of being in someone else’s bed - in a chaste fashion, primarily. His sheets were comfortable in an entirely different way than ours were. His mattress was shabby firm, but I liked it. Our quality plush was a wonderful cloud, but this made me feel held closer. Sturdier. More grounded where I laid. 

I told him I was sorry I hadn’t made time for him to fuck me. I told him I’d happily blow him in the morning. I’d be eager to suck his dick. And he laughed. He asked why I thought he expected sex from me. I told him I _wanted_ it. His eyes were beautiful. He was interrogating me with love. I kissed his lips and I fell asleep. Unconscious once more.


	22. Old Habits Die Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I wonder if I’m good at this because I enjoy it viscerally, or because I wish to harbor the affections of men._

It’s hard to find a position, either between or atop someone’s legs, for you to arch your neck so dramatically and still be comfortable. In the heat of a sudden, equally lucid moment, you can’t spend ten minutes with a pillow. Awake eyes watching you, scrutinizing you closely. You can’t take your time, communicating to each limb, making sure every bend in your body is entirely at ease. You’re too busy performing.

But Taehyung wasn’t awake, and he is a _very_ heavy sleeper, so I knew I had time and plenty of moves left. I spread his thighs slowly, and I moved and moved until I was sure my shoulders weren’t tense. In the purple briefs he put on after our shower, he was visible even while flaccid. I pressed my face against the soft warmth and nuzzled the sensitive, clothed flesh at a slow pace. He stirred, making a noise and moving his arms slightly, growing hard and heavy against my cheek. 

The face is so sensitive, and too often goes neglected as a utility during sex. I can feel everything there, and to top it all off, my flared nostrils were never far from the depths of his musk. I slowly hooked my index fingers beneath the briefs and lifted them, pulling them down until their waistband was bunched beneath and supporting his sack, just as those pants had bolstered Seokjin’s. I took the tip of my tongue and traced the veins along each one, a droplet of premature ejaculate leaving a trail down the back of Taehyung’s head. Ultimately, it touched the bridge of my nose after dripping down his shaft and stuck there. My forehead grew dirty, sticky and slick when I marginally pushed forward to capture one orb into my mouth, dragging the hair there with my tongue and swiping at the sensitive flesh between his sack carefully. He was still leaking against the warmth of my face, understanding its capabilities fully then.

I spent enough time preparing him, and when all was said and done, he was as hard as a rock. I dragged my tongue to the tip, swirling it around the head of his cock while I held the hilt with one hand. I massaged his balls, which I had made wet, with the other and began to slowly bob my head. One of his hands pushed through my hair and cradled the bulb of a cheek between thumb and middle finger, and he let out a sultry, low moan that only the privacy of one’s own home could enable. Privacy is comfort.

He was large in my mouth, as my tongue slid forward and my jaw fell agape to take more. Every motion was completely wet, slick, and entirely smooth. Seamless. No one gave Taehyung enough credit: he was bigger than everyone but the two endowed men I had just left with Jungkook, large and meaty and proud with a gentle curve. And veiny, yes. Defined. While my plump lips stretched and glided down his shaft, surfing across the touchy skin, my tongue casually pushed beyond them and pressed against the ridges of his veins. The veins along his cock were like a natural set of nerves, and he always enjoyed the careful attention I paid them. I rubbed at the immaculate entrance of his pink pucker with two fingers, slipping my hand down to rub the sensitive, acute muscle there. Only from the outside.

In a way, I felt bad for the boys. My tangible talents are limited, so I have no shame in admitting that I am a master of sensuality. I have perfected an expertise in sex, and my undeniable specialty is using my mouth as a tool of worship. Oral therapy. It’s an ego trip to think this, but sometimes I wonder if they’ll ever find their _own_ relationships. Typical relationships, not like the one I have with Yoongi. The sex will never be the best they’ve ever had, so they’ll be inclined towards an open relationship. It’s wishful thinking, hoping they’re available to me forever. To my neuroticism. I wonder if I’m good at this because I enjoy it viscerally, or because I wish to harbor the affections of men. Maybe intuition doesn’t totally disable social performance... dramaturgy. Maybe they mingle freely.

But that doesn’t eliminate the presence of intuition, the gut. If sex is one of those factors, then I’m on fire, and I really am just treating myself by giving genuine pleasure to a beautiful man and a dear friend. I continued on, lower and lower, deep throating him for only a moment before pulling back. I left my saliva everywhere and marked his mind. I knew he, too, would remember this. He’d masturbate thinking about this. And I told him. Once I felt him throb, once the taste shot onto my tongue. Once he fed me. I told him, bitter in the mouth, with plump lips and wide eyes, to tell me when he jacked off thinking about this. Text me. Call me. Phone fuck me. Send me pictures of the aftermath, videos of the crime. He was surprised by my words, but not alarmed. As a matter of fact, my straightforwardness aroused him. I know this because I was rubbing my cheek against his cock–against his thigh–as I spoke when I felt it twitch.

All of the boys knew they could do those things to me, and none of them were particularly discouraged. But it’s a brave leap forward with someone like me. Someone who can be intimidating, and who never does anything like this half-assed. That’s when he told me, like clockwork: _that_ was the best orgasm he’s ever had. That wins me accolades such as ‘best sexual encounter’, ‘best blowjob’, and other awards as a result. It covers all and puts a smile on my face before anything else. Slowly, I come down from my high - not a sexual high, but a mania. The first wave of withdrawal. 

I roll onto my back and ask him for water. He pulls his briefs up and moves swiftly and gracefully like he owed me something. Either that, or I was his prince and didn’t know it. When he brought it to me, chilled and bottled, I unscrewed the cap and pulled a loose pill out of my shorts on the floor. I drank half the bottle with it, felt the cold water falling down my warm throat and filling my hungry stomach. He smiled at me, kissed my neck some more, slid his hand down my boxers and started touching me. I laid back and let it happen, because I was high, and I was happy.


	23. Lines of Our Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _We did nothing but sit around and experiment with sloth. Marijuana never cleared my mind; it was never a gift of brevity, but a calmant for intrusive and otherwise troubling thoughts._

The smell of weed wafted outside from my living room window, and when I showed up, the smoke did too. I kissed Taehyung on the cheek and thanked him for everything before slipping out of the passenger seat and taking the steps up to the front door in strides. The television was loud, and Yoongi’s voice was louder. He was ranting to someone on the phone:

“Nah, thing is… when there’s a law meant to ‘protect’ someone, it’s never like that anymore. People think I don’t know shit ‘cause I barely graduated high school, but they’re all like hamsters on cage wheels, dude. All those laws weren’t emotional when they were made, they were logical and shit. Someone said ‘this might hurt the person doing it, might hurt someone else’, and then that got… uhh, like, normalized, y’know… and it became an emotional thing, a cultural thing. You see it with the issue with drugs, the way sex has become this complicated and evil thing… the most natural things to us, man… Follow your gut and shit. Know the rules, know how to play by the rules–‘cause that shit won’t change, never–but listen to your heart and do whatever the fuck you want. Everyone’s just brainwashed, shit… Namjoon… I gotta go. I should take the trash out and shit. I gotta go to the car wash eventually, shower again... My baby boy’s supposed to be back soon... Yeah, alright… alright… don’t be dumb, fuckwit… Later...”

I got home around lunchtime, and everything was clean. The upstairs, I mean - spoiler alert. Right then, overhearing him, I was practically hiding behind a plastic plant we put out front, listening to his monologue from the porch. Crouching, admiring the street intelligence, and swooning over his mind before opening the door and locking it behind me. Yoongi was sitting on the downstairs couch, watching a daytime scripted reality show; his smile was so wide, and he hugged me like we’d been apart for a month. Lifted me off my feet for half a moment, kissed my cheek, and held both sides of my ass with either of his palms.

“How was Taehyung’s?”  
“Good, we went to the mall and then slept at his place.” Because it’s closer. The thought trailed off and never left my lips.  
“Well, I hope he had fun too. He ain’t stealing my power bottom like that again.”  
I wonder if he meant a physical constant with that label, or if he was just referring to my ongoing social and mental manipulation. That’s what being in control is all about, isn’t it? That’s _real_ power. Doesn’t matter who’s where or acting like what. If I have the final say–sometimes, the only say–in sex’s direction, what goes down, then he’s right. A role reversal, an unlikely source of omnipotence. A _power bottom_. 

And I might have lost sight of that briefly in the past, but it won’t happen again. 

I’m sure he wasn’t thinking that hard. I was a good receiver. It was _that_ simple. He put the half-burnt joint from his lips to mine, and I took three or four separate hits before giving the butt of it back for him to finish. We did nothing but sit around and experiment with sloth. Marijuana never cleared my mind; it was never a gift of brevity, but a calmant for intrusive and otherwise troubling thoughts. When he asked for something exciting, he asked the wrong person. One tablet in, inhibitions gone, and the next thing I knew I was snorting a line of cocaine off of Yoongi’s erect penis with a rolled bill. 

It seemed exhilarating. A pornographic stunt. Entertainment. And my body wasn’t used to uppers, so near midnight that evening, we decided to go to the local high school. In briefs and basketball shorts, I pretended to be a part of the track team. Ran never-ending ovals. My body thought they were figure eights. And he was sitting on the bleachers with his tank top bunched up around his neck, thousand dollar sneakers that made my running shoes look like rotten vegetables, and boxers so big they _almost_ didn’t look like underwear. Almost. 

I felt clarity in my mind, and I felt it in my body. 

He was smoking a cigarette, waving a handgun around. The sky was clear and the moon was full. Four guards and a driver came back from a piss trek, wandering into my line of sight and sitting at the foot of the bleachers - at Yoongi’s feet. 

It must have been an hour until I was exhausted and dragged back into a black van which never sat in our garage. I’m sure it belonged to him one way or another, given the tinted windows, the adequate space for so many of us (so many armed men). He asked the driver if the driver thought _I_ was sexy, and the _driver_ seemed nervous. How would you answer that question? And I crawled onto Yoongi’s lap and pulled his gun out from his waistband. I pushed the tip to his lower lip and dragged it across the flesh, and I told him to blow me. Suck my barrel off. He laughed. If he did the coke, too, I bet he would have. 

He didn’t want my finger on the handle. That’s the truth.

We cleaned up when we got back. Showers are becoming a point of immense focus in my life. He finally did a line off of the marble counter top, and when we were drying each other off, he tried to stick his finger in my ass. Two, actually. So I let him do it for a minute and then played dumb. I brought him into the bedroom when we were dry, I laid down, and I pulled him beside me. I went to go down on him, and I slipped my tongue between the crevices of his dragon. The tip pushed against his tight entrance, his virginal pinkness. Freshly cleaned; otherwise pure. And I slipped inside. First my mouth, then a thumb, and then, my dick. He put himself on his stomach, own accord, and I fucked him. Doggy style. 

Namjoon says he always knew Yoongi had a big dick because of his hands. Veiny, long fingers. So his only slightly above average height, particularly cute face, and noticeably slender build meant nothing. Of course, there’s no certain way to know whether or not a man is packing besides looking at his dick–or asking him, if you enjoy being lied–and it’s not a necessary piece of information. (Trust me, it’s what someone _does_ with their body that decides whether sex is satisfactory or not. And as I’ve said and expressed before, large size can be a troubling thing.) Namjoon always insisted this came with being a real man, an alpha male, and that he’d be rough. With the ladies, or, I suppose, as a top now. Among we, the seven shades of bisexuality, a surprising number of us do prefer men, and a less surprising number will fuck anyone who will take it. These preferences exist in a vacuum only unlocked with trust that is difficult to earn, so we have one another. For many of us, _only_ only another. And we have expectations. That Namjoon will be wild with his body; that Seokjin will be gentle; that Jungkook is horny and Taehyung will go with it. Hoseok is kinky and eager, Yoongi’s high and ready to bust, and Jimin needs it. 

I need it. 

I didn’t start thinking about why until I was sober, the next morning. Right now. Wondering if I was horny or if I wanted to prove that things aren’t always what they seem - and beyond that fluidity, that Yoongi wasn’t such a golden star giver. He enjoyed it, after all. Was surprised, yes, but I’m manageable. And he loved it. I held his ass and I pounded, and I felt the softness, his _phenomenal_ ass (not near as big as mine, but soft), and I learned what it’s like to finish inside of someone, to _be_ inside of someone like that. I asked him if he wanted it to stay between us. He said:

“Well, it ain’t going _beyond_ you.”  
“Won’t let anyone else?”  
“Fuck no.”  
“Why not?”  
“I don’t trust them.”

Was he powdered and still thinking in terms of affection? This was all romantic, and I went from fucking to wondering. I heard my mother’s voice again, warning me to not be my own worst enemy. And I smiled and told him how much I loved it, and that I was genuinely, truly flattered that it was something for us. In my eyes, his resilient masculinity and dominance flourished. A man for the family, for domestic bliss, and for his lover; he put me on a pedestal as a result of all of this, and the spin from the blow left me reeling, asking, _myself_ , if yesterday really happened.

He asked me if I wanted to fuck someone else, one of them. Not particularly, not dying for it, but I wasn’t against it. I’ve always thought of it. I’ve been in the mood before. I asked him if he wanted it to be something I only did with him. He said no. I asked him if he thought it was sexy when I dominated, like I have with riding Jungkook, guiding Taehyung, or keeping Hoseok on a tight leash. He said yes. I asked him if he thought it would be sexy for him to watch me fuck somebody. Apprehensive and hesitant, he said he probably would. The kind of ‘probably’ that is positively skewed: an ecstatic ‘yes’ once you know for sure, or a resounding ‘no’ when something unexpected catches you off guard. I asked him if he was gonna stop rubbing his eyes and make me scream.

Because now more than ever, I need him inside of me.


	24. The Unsung Prophet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I smell the world with crystal clarity; I keep my visions to myself._

“There’s seven of us; we need a dungeon master, and we can only have five actual party members... Gentlemen… shall we circle jerk?”

This is my friend, Hoseok. 

“Guy who busts first gets stuck with the job, yeah?”

We’re playing _Dungeons & Dragons_, a game wherein you participate in spoken fantasy role-play as a traveling band of adventurers. Everyone gets a pencil and a decorated piece of paper called a ‘character sheet’, which has spots for the name, race, class, et cetera of your muse. We’ve been playing this as a group since we were teenagers, but after our last years-long guild of half-brothers (all sons of the fallen god of murder) were killed when they failed to prevent their father’s resurrection, we took a break. Nine months later, the gestation period is over. 

We’re going to tell a _new_ story, and this time, our objective is to kill the god and bring our old selves back to life. We don’t know where it’ll go after that.

“Well, I wanna be a warlock. I was the rogue last time.” I loved being able to get creative with my actions, but the time for dark magic is nigh.  
“I’ll be the rogue.” Jungkook nodded firmly. “An elf. A… player elf. Slutty dude elf. Tall, massive schlong.”  
“Oh, you’re nasty.”

Brief silence. We were down to the wire, and Yoongi was yet to receive his comeuppance as former dungeon master. 

The dungeon master is the person who guides the story. They bring the boring cardboard map centerpiece to life with their words. They narrate, they take strengths and weaknesses into consideration, but they don’t get to be a part of the tale. It’s a lot of fun for the right person, and you usually keep the same dungeon master because it _isn’t_ a sought after job. No one wants to do it. 

“I’ll be DM.” Seokjin announced, pressing his lips together and nodding affirmatively. A wise and benevolent choice. Maybe this time, we’ll survive long enough to get the job done.

“I’ll be a paladin.”  
“Namjoon, wow… huge change from your psycho mage.” Taehyung spoke in jest.  
“Human paladin. Big shoulders. Gets _all_ the ladies.”  
“Is that in his vow?”  
“Uhh… no.”  
“Well… I’ll be a cleric. A cute little gnome. We don’t need a mage.”

“Yes we do, I’ll be the mage.” Hoseok said.

Jungkook, rogue; Jimin, warlock; Namjoon, paladin; Hoseok, mage; Taehyung, cleric. Seokjin is the dungeon master, and that leaves Yoongi as the odd one out. We always have to find a way to incorporate the sixth guy into the story, since we don’t want him to be bored, and the five person party thing is a house rule. 

“I’ll be a demon.” Yoongi smiled at me. “Jimin’s familiar.”

The first chapter (first session) is underway a good two hours later. Yes, it takes a while to fill out those character sheets. Drawing a picture–with words–of your character, settling on a name, a race, background… and then the good stuff: the spells, the skills. It could take us all day, if we let it.

We stumble upon a village and settle at the tavern there, distributing a few experience points to give us a slight boost. The barmaid gossips about the return of an evil god and warns of the chaos sewn in his footsteps. We struggle with dramatic irony, trying to separate what we know from what our brand new characters know. Seokjin has a tough time deciding where we go from here.

“Well, I’m neutral evil.” I say. “What if I have my demon pet possess Jungkook’s guy and turn him into a sex slave? We can whore him out for cash and get the best equipment around before taking on a god.”  
Jungkook glares at me. “Uhm… first of all, his name is Rikinior. Second of all, my proficiencies still suck and I’m the only one who can take a hit without immediately dying in this party. So… think again.”  
“Nah, you think again, motherfucker. I’m the paladin here, squishy.” Namjoon bellowed from the corner of the table. 

“This is boring as fuck.” Yoongi yelled, tipping his chair back. Our kitchen table was a little too cramped for this. “Let me get some chicken wings or some shit…”

We all agreed that it wasn’t the same, because our last set of characters were our first long-term ones, and we played them at least monthly for four years. We didn’t destroy our character sheets when we were done with them like good players, so we brought them back out and decided that their tainted souls had possessed new adventurers for the sake of traveling back to their bodies.

It was a hike up a mountain. I ran out of spells fast, we made it to the top, took a zeppelin, and ended up where our last confrontation had ended. We abandoned our new characters and repossessed our old ones. But Yoongi didn’t want to be dungeon master again, so we thought about expanding our party to six characters, like in the video games.

If it sounds as boring and resentful as going for a tattoo you’re unsure of or taking a practice test, we’re on the same page. It didn’t take long to realize that trying to play a tabletop role-playing game again was even worse than being sober for it. We decided to retcon (retroactive continuity; Google it) our old story so that they were still alive. We’d have a bare naked survival story to continue off later. But we didn’t want to play right then, so we ordered five medium pizzas and somehow ate them all, instead.

Not every question comes with an answer.

Things got boring fast, even _with_ seven boys under one roof. We put pills on our tongues and drank water after five minutes. Everyone went to bed, but I stayed up real late, by myself. I walked around sleeping bags and arms hanging off the edge of the couch, and my bed, filled to the brim with men who I had zero interest in. I heard the melodic smashing of piano keys, saw glowing neon teal lights along every perimeter; felt an emotional dullness deep within my physical core but understood everything. The heavy synth bass drilling into my ears. It was fatigue. It was residue. The smell of the angel’s trumpets welcoming the cool summer night air in from the kitchen window while I laid on the downstairs sofa. The pounding of drums. Glittering glass chandeliers. I shut my eyes and saw white lights bouncing upon the backside of my eyelids. I felt the terror of talking to strangers, and I envisioned a graph, a gradient of growth labeled ‘comfort making phone calls’ which spanned the entirety of my young life. A rainbow of metallic, acidic color. The dark blue sky beside the moon. Industrial music and a date with a hacker. I didn’t know if I was still awake or asleep, or somewhere in between with no one to blame but myself.

I saw my other life. Yoongi as a highlife promoter and not a lowlife owner. Clubs and Seokjin as a computer scientist. An engineer. A security guard. And I saw my life working for a newspaper and taking a needle in my arm twice a day to prevent hallucinations; hallucinations now upon me, beneath me like a message. I see Jungkook and Taehyung together. I see Hoseok buying sports cars and Namjoon suffering in jail. I feel my nostrils flare. I feel them touch my skin. I try to jump when my feet start to run. I smell the world with crystal clarity; I keep my visions to myself.

I felt a weight on my chest, and then, a heat. A heaviness in my lap until my body jerked itself forward. The sun was rising. I had slept for hours. Not a good night’s rest, but sufficient for an early day of drooping eyelids and feigned hardship. I looked down and saw cursive on my left bicep, mapped out in marker where ink should have been:

**What do you want from me?**


	25. Patron of the Lost Causes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I don’t sing to him anymore, not when he’s sick or tired or lonely. I only sing to one person._

_Hey, Min. It’s Dad. I really wish you’d pick your phone up more often. I wish I could hear that you’re alright. Listen, I know it’s painful, but I think you should come see your mother. It’s been a couple months. It hurts a lot, I know, but she’s not going to be around forever. You said you wanted honesty? Well, the truth is that she isn’t getting better. She isn’t comatose, but she’s certainly getting worse. And your father - hey, I’m still here. Don’t forget me! I love you. Tell Yoongi I said ‘hi’. Love you both. Have a good day. Stay out of trouble. Text me or something. Okay, bye._

I did musical theater at a local creative arts academy in high school. My peak? Trixie in _The Rocky Horror Show_. I loved that role. Tight red clothing and an absolutely fascinating part all around. To be the Usherette at all, and then to be the one who introduces the show to the audience as a part of their world. As meant for an audience like theirs. Open things and close them; what I loved about that was the nature of the show’s framing. It was all a movie. Nothing is real, all thanks to me and my theater defining reality for the viewer. Walking down the aisles, waving my oversized flashlight in the face of many a stranger at the beginning. Helping them to realize that they’re a _part_ of the show. 

But it’s only one number. The number’s tender, if you’ve ever heard it, and I could sing it. And I could sing it like nobody else. I could sing. I can sing. I did sing. I stole the show. One spring, at least. I was the star of a particularly weak cast. That fall, a real drag queen student came in to play Dr. Frank N Furter. My time as _the_ role-defying, symbolically cross-dressing royalty was severed. Cut short, if you’d ask me. I continued to serve for the remainder of the shows, but I wasn’t the only standout performance anymore.

The region’s creative department professionals (anyone who’s anyone who’s a theater, music, or art teacher at the time came to see the plays at this academy) knew who I was. They came from far and wide. I was the boy Usherette. The best Trixie. The best “Science Fiction / Double Feature” they’d ever heard, because we turned the tune into a slow, singsongy melody. It had a pop hook. It was a sentimental, dearly melancholic power ballad of ooh-ah-oohs and physical theatrics. I belted, I moved my lips erratically yet smoothly, and I held nothing back with melodramatic body language. I sat down in the back row, and I looked reminiscent, distant, but as a body of art. I was perfect. 

Maybe I want to sing. I obviously liked the attention, but I don’t think that was the only reason–or even the primary reason–why I loved performing so much. I loved knowing that there were people coming just for me. I think I could have played the main role of a show if it meant that same feeling. It was like a drug. But my job was favorable, because my time on or around stage was limited… and yet, I was adored all the same. My voice never wore out from singing hours a night multiple times a week. I wasn’t out for more than ten minutes, but people still wanted to meet Trixie. They came for me; they wanted to meet _me_. And I loved singing. I loved the noise that came from my mouth. I loved being praised for a high-pitched sleekness instead of chastised for my relaxed range. 

But I never sang again. I didn’t know how, didn’t know where or why I would. Yoongi would encourage me, from time to time, to give it a try. Maybe even give fame a go. He’d always say, you can sing, you can really sing! The bigger his business got, the worse the idea seemed. I don’t sing to him anymore, not when he’s sick or tired or lonely. I only sing to one person. 

I sing to my mother. 

She loves it. It might be luck alone, but when I sing that song, she sometimes remembers me. And I hug her, I hug her so tight, and I cry. And I tell her I love her and hold her while she slips back into the abyss. It’s inevitable; and she’s gone again. When she’s gone, I might as well have been mute. It’s like I never sang to begin with. Like I never wanted my voice at all. It feels redundant and useless and pointless. Singing is redundant, useless. Pointless. Demoralizing, to see her like that. Here but not here. It’s worse than if she was dead. Because my eyes tell my brain something, and my brain tells my eyes that it’s a lie, and that it’s different. That the memory is what matters, emotionally, for the survival of the heart. But it’s demoralizing. Demoralizing, and heartbreaking. I can cry for her from here. I can sob in peace and quiet and security and comfort. I can cry without worrying her, or confusing her, or bothering her wandering brain. But it’s heartbreaking. Heartbreaking, and I’m heartbroken. I’m a momma’s boy without a mother. 

I miss my mom. 

“Min Yoongi, I am your parent! Answer this door! I have a bone to pick with you, young man.” Her voice was muffled from behind the front door, which she probably did _not_ know was bulletproof. I tiptoed downstairs and found myself thankful that none of our steps creaked. “I have your little brother with me. You wouldn’t want to disappoint him, would you? Answer this fucki–this freaking door, Yoongi! Yoong–”

I hit all three locks and tore it open in what felt like less than a second. Her eyes widened when she saw me, standing there in nothing but red sweatpants, hickies on my neck and collarbones, eyes swollen and bloodshot from what her judgmental glare assumed was smoking. My hair an ungodly shade of peach. It really was ungodly. I saw the cross she wore, made of plastic which looked like bone, and the silver necklace which hung beneath it: _saint jude, pray for me_. Jihoon had healed up nicely, but looked like he was being held hostage with a hand on his collar. It was nearly thirty-seven degrees outside. My half-naked body was drenched in sweat, so I couldn’t imagine what they felt like: he beneath a school uniform, her with a grey dress and black kitten heels. Unfortunately, I had no interest in inviting them both inside.

“Can I help you?”  
“Ugh, can you _help_ me?”  
“I mean, you came to _my_ house.” I flashed Jihoon a sympathetic stare.  
“This is _his_ house, _he_ pays the bills. I’d like to talk to _my_ son about why _his_ brother came home with two black eyes last week!”

She hadn’t interrogated Jihoon. She didn’t even know when it happened, or what had happened at all.

I was silent for a moment. She was carrying a brown leather bible with her, and she held it out to me to interrupt my empty stare. “Love the sinner; hate the sin.” She muttered, shaking it as if to tempt my hand. She didn’t even know Jihoon had more than bags under his eyes from fatigue until she went to inspect him recently. Inspect him, because his graduation is coming up. It’s all about looks, appearances. Façades. I figured it out, and it made me remorseful. Not guilty, but feeling saddened. 

“Yoongi isn’t here right now. You’ll have to come back later, or… give him a call next time, to make sure he’s around.”

She swallowed angrily: shook the hair out of her face, blinked fast. Still holding the bible out. Meanwhile, we were already plotting to offer her precious son his own sexual revolution. Not alcohol or drugs, but freedom. Freedom is essential to success, but Jihoon didn’t want to be a success. Not the kind of success his mother wanted him to be. She was keeping him from that. In her own grief, she became an oppressor. A bad person, and for what? It is born from selfishness. To be so egotistical to think or believe or _feel_ that your desires warrant obedience. That your leadership is feasible and applicable prior to consent. That’s a dictator, and that’s an untalented leader. Saying yes under duress isn’t a fair place for a child to be, or anyone to be. But too many children are bullied into submission by their own parents. Jihoon’s sexual revolution can be anything from an arranged bona fide hookup to a new pair of pajamas and three movies. Sex is pleasure, hedonism. When you escape a mother like that, _everything_ feels like sex. Trust me, my boyfriend is direct anecdotal evidence.

“It isn’t too late.” She began with a deep breath, “To purify your relationship. God will not welcome two men to heaven.”

I took the bible from her and looked to Jihoon before shutting the door in their faces. I’m sure he wouldn’t take it personally. And I talked to myself as I sat the kitchen table with one of Yoongi’s pocket knives. Whispered to myself all of the things I wish I could have said, that I would have years back: that her son’s lips left these marks, that he fucked me, _how_ he fucked me; maturely, ask how it was that her fallen husband was in heaven despite his crimes then. But I did not wish to upset Jihoon, and truthfully, I didn’t wish to disrespect Yoongi’s father either. Neither his spirit nor his name, because he was a good, caring man. He wouldn’t approve of what she’s done with his death as an excuse. I carved the shape of a handgun into the pages and dumped the loose paper into the trash bin. I took it upstairs and put a pistol into its new emptiness, making a few adjustments to force its fit. Snug and safe. I held it in my lap and read a verse still visible, still present, at the top of one of the destroyed pages:

_But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord._

Joshua, 24:15.


	26. Not On Drugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Yoongi pulled a napkin out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me, and I emptied my emotion onto the paper and balled it up in my hand, and he took it back from me. Took a cheap piece of tissue paper drenched in my facial bodily fluids so that I could hold my mother’s hand again._

I had a dream that I was with her, and that everything was alright. So Yoongi helped me to garner the strength and came with me for a visit.

“Mom?” No response. He grabbed every door and made sure they shut gently behind us while I approached her favorite chair. My dad was already sitting in a rocking chair beside her, but he was silent too. Giving me a chance. She was staring out the window; I took her hand and held it, sitting on the bed beside her when I realized I hadn’t asked permission to touch her. She turned to me and smiled. She repeated me: “Mom?”

A rift in my chest, or a literal artery wound, tore open. I couldn’t decide which one it was, because emotional pain felt like the real thing. My eyes watered; there was no jumping forward to life, no waking from a dream. I wasn’t in bed, on the sofa, or unconscious on a floor. Yoongi stood against the foot of the bed and put a hand on my closest shoulder. He was extremely sympathetic, felt the hurt. My voice shook. I was the most sober I’ve been since she got sick, because this, this torture, is sobering. “Do you know who I am?”

Our gazes connected, and I saw an ocean beneath her black pupils. I waited. I heard Yoongi sniffle and begin to cry. My lower lip shook softly. It was a bad day. A very bad day for her, her condition, and now, a bad day for me.

“No. I am sorry.”

My throat started to twitch. My dad started saying that’s our son, that’s our son. It destroyed me to think she was apologetic for something she couldn’t help. In her forties, and suffering like this. It doesn’t take a god to see how cruel and sick this twist is, how difficult it is to live with and even by the side of. 

I never feared being like her, never thought I inherited the same unfortunate gene or unlucky fate. Because I knew I hadn’t. I could feel it, in an active mind and an assertive brain and a gift. A dwelling curse of anxious over-precaution. I would be mentally present until the day I die, if for no other reason than to guarantee the guilt and shame and regret which will wash over me in my final years. I started distancing myself from everything with that logic, a teardrop falling down my cheek without much spectacle or sobbing to welcome it. She was nodding to my father in understanding before suddenly, she turned her head back around to face us. She looked to Yoongi who was standing in a black leather jacket, hiding his further hand in his pocket. Trying to look strong.

“Yoongi…”  
My father panicked to continue the thought. “Do you know who Yoongi is?”  
“Jim… Jimin’s friend. My son’s friend.” She smiled. “How is he?”

Yoongi’s eyes widened. He wiped his nose and then his forehead, looking to me and then back to her before speaking slowly and clearly, repeating himself like my father did. “He’s great, Mrs. Park. He loves you so much.” He spoke like a hostage negotiator, trying to think of everything I wanted her to know, all of the right things to say while he had her attention and its sentience. “He thinks about you, all the time.”

She stared at him for a moment. My father said, his boyfriend, he’s Jimin’s boyfriend. That was open territory, and it was a fact established long before the signs of her illness reared various proverbial, ugly heads. I hummed beneath my breath, more to keep calm (or try to become calm again, rather) than to call her awareness to myself. But it was still that familiar tune, my song, and my father kept telling her something old and something new, it’s Jimin’s boyfriend, they live together now. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to know I wasn’t in the house anymore. It made me feel bad. I didn’t want her to think that I abandoned her. Then again, it’d be my reason why I wasn’t around much. I wasn’t around at all, because I was a young adult with my own life. She would have wanted me to move on more than anything. She would have wanted me to make a normal life for myself. Underneath it all, maybe that’s still what she wants. Maybe she still has those thoughts. For me to keep to myself and love her from afar. To love her memory, her healthy self, more. To worry about my own comfort and my own heartbreak.

She never went to church, but she still prayed from home.

Everything about this broke my heart. Every. Single. Thing. But I knew she could still hear me. She came to the show at _least_ ten times, and typically _not_ because she hadn’t remembered it. She heard me sing this song so many times. My song. My _favorite_ song. Something connected, and it was like a baby picture taken before something incredibly traumatic changed the course of the baby’s life. And she looked at me with a smile. I rubbed the back of her hand with both of my thumbs and tried to grin, and she spoke to me softly. “I love you.”

“Do you know who he is, Mrs. Park?” Yoongi asked. He’d gotten good at fishing for answers–and activity–out of her. Witty, cunning. A fast learner. My Yoongi.  
“My guardian angel.”

My father said, that’s your son. That’s Jimin. And she nodded, nodded to a big baby with a round face, a face full of snot. _Her_ big baby, with a cool base of spit and booger and warm tears mingling there too. Yoongi pulled a napkin out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me, and I emptied my emotion onto the paper and balled it up in my hand, and he took it back from me. Took a cheap piece of tissue paper drenched in my facial bodily fluids so that I could hold my mother’s hand again. 

That’s what love is. That’s what partnership and companionship are. That’s what a soul-mate _does_. _Doesn’t_ curse your bible-thumping mother out and insult her in front of your little brother; _does_ push through your blood, sweat, tears, and discharge to give you more. We were both successful. We were two halves of the same whole, and I surrendered my ferocious individualism to that understanding. He didn’t mind. Didn’t flinch, wasn’t grossed out, didn’t think twice about stuffing that dirtied napkin back into his pocket. Because it was _mine_. 

I kissed my mother on the cheek and told her that I loved her. She was fixated on a waving tree outside again, gone before I could even finish hugging her. A forced departure. So I slowly let go and pulled back, let her virtually lifeless arms gradually descend from atop my own and back to her waist. She seemed so frail next to my muscular shoulders, and my biceps. I felt the choking heat swell in my chest again, but did my best to remain controlled. My father was giving Yoongi half a hug with the arm not comforting my mother, and he looked to me and nodded. I hugged him too, suppressed a sob beside his ear, and touched her shoulder again before leaving. I told them both–but told her, again–that all I had to give, all I felt, was love. To family, to them. For all of my loved ones, including the boys, I think that’s true.

Down the hallway, with the heavy door shut, I fell to my knees and dropped the ghostly burden I had been holding onto. Yoongi sat on the floor and held my head, and I became hysterical. I kept telling him that I loved him and that I would do anything for him, that I would take a bullet for him, and he didn’t like that. But he understood the sentiment. I thanked him for everything: for supporting me, for helping to support my family when they needed it after my father quit his job to take care of my mother (my aunts have since stepped in). I thanked him for being with me and loving me and never turning his back on me. I thanked him for laughing when I told him I had a dream he cheated on me, because I don’t need to validate my neurotic brain. My own craziness, my own disease. He laughed that off, too. “I’m proud of you.” He said, kissing my cheek.

Ten minutes later, I was coherent and better. We walked to the truck quietly, holding hands. I clenched his tightly.

“Where do you wanna go?” He asked with an optimistic tone, sitting in the driveway of my childhood house. “Home?”

“Yeah. Home.”


	27. Lost In My Bedroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Temperance is a skill ill-(for)gotten and a wisdom yet to be achieved. We didn’t have to do this, but we did._

The reason people say you won’t ‘end up’ with–marry, have kids with, or commit to–the person you dated in high school, or even college, is simple. Sex. _Intimacy_. People get bored. They want to go out on dates with and fuck other people. That physical and emotional buildup is intense. The thrill of something new. But when push comes to shove, they also usually want nothing more than to come home and be with the person they love. That nomadic velocity wears off after a few weeks, and when the honeymoon phase is over for a fling, everything is put into perspective. You could play with this game of commitment which nobody seems to truly want or mean, or you can expect, accept, and encourage the temporary titillation. By doing so, you’ll drain what could have been an affair of its exhilarating qualities (secrecy, otherness) and prevent it from becoming romanticized in the wandering party’s mind. With the fantasy of something fresh and different gone, logic will remain and the couple will persevere, united the entire time. Everyone will feel free, happy, and the relationship will prosper because of honesty and a happiness which feels unique - _one of a kind_ , because it comes from an enjoyment too often repressed.

That’s why Yoongi and I have been such a success together, and for so long. I’m not saying that understanding the idea of an open relationship is as simple as participating in one. You have to be the kind of person who’s capable of that. Being sexually into it is a plus, and it’ll make things easier. There’s a sexual component to an overall romance, and the partitioning of that is _huge_. But anything is possible when you understand the benefits of a personal arrangement which permits certain freedoms.

If you just can’t do it, then look for someone who’s staunch in those same beliefs. I don’t blame you. It’s about circumstance, too. Luck. Because we don’t run around fucking strangers, hell no. I wouldn’t work with that. He certainly wouldn’t. That’s where the jealousy, the paranoia, and the mistrust come into play. We just have _friends_. Friends are often who enable these types of physically open, emotionally committed relationships. (You can feel those romantic emotions with them, but more on that in a moment.) Friends who are equally open-minded and cool about things. And with mutual friends like ours, it works splendidly.

That doesn’t mean that complications can’t arise. That’s where, even with physical compatibility and interpersonal convenience, things can still fall apart: jealousy. Crushes. Time management. To alleviate and bypass that final barrier, you need (at least) two things: transparency in communication and a strong relationship. Our relationship wasn’t open until my last couple years of college, which means we spent years together romantically–and a lifetime, amicably–alone. Together. I’m not worried about anything for _that_ reason. It wasn’t a requirement for saving our relationship, but it was something that we decided to do to remain as belated as possible.   
Yoongi’s the type of guy who would stay with me for his entire life even if he was miserable. He likes the idea of our relationship, the way it is perceived, and the idea of the concrete home and resulting domestic bliss. He wasn’t becoming miserable out of petty boredom, no. Neither was I. I’d stay with him because I know we’re compatible in every way. Personalities, body parts. We have deep, deep history, and he treats me well. He passes every test. There’s no part of our relationship that is a burden or that is tricky to me. He agrees.

No, petty boredom is a call to the young man and woman. The youth at large. Begging for hedonism and pleasure and fulfillment in whatever. Whatever the fuck we want. Temperance is a skill ill-(for)gotten and a wisdom yet to be achieved. We didn’t have to do this, but we did. Because the stars aligned and on a massive matrix of prerequisites and careful preparations, we were ready. The details of our relationship have developed overtime, and we’re open to having things be closed again as well. Open to close.

But what’s the point, with friends like ours?

He likes watching and being a part of things, and I do too. And I like watching, I just have to be in the right mindset. The perfect mood. With a lighter mind than usual, things aren’t quite as complicated, but they are complex. Anything can be complex if you want it to be. I think about things a lot. And I think that, while I will continue to promote giving open relationships a try, I’ve changed my mind. I can’t urge everyone to run out and find a promiscuous partner, because I’ve just now fully realized that my life experiences are very unique. Of course, life is all about unique experiences and stories to tell. Stories that happen to you and nobody else. I guess this is just another one of those stories.

Last night, when we got back from my mother and father’s house, we talked for hours. Talked in the garage, on the way to the bathroom, in the shower, while getting into pajamas, while eating something in the kitchen, while laying across the couch, while cuddling in bed. We made love passionately, with gentle words and an ongoing bear hug. It was more intimacy and less sex, and although I was ready to let him finish inside of me, he pulled out and picked his hips up, and I slid down the bed and swallowed him instead. Things wandered freely after we spent the entire evening reassuring our love, our gratefulness. We started talking about others after dedicating such a long time to ourselves.

“I think it’s cute, how you are around me and Namjoon.” I said.  
“What do you mean?”  
“You really hold him back. Like, isn’t he into hitting and shit? You don’t let him do that to me.”  
He smiled. “Hell no. If you want someone to hit you, I will. I don’t trust that motherfucker’s anger issues. I trust him, but not his fists. I’ve seen him lose it. I love ‘em but no.” A laugh. 

Yoongi rested the side of his head in his palm, grinning down at me. Wrapped in our comforter, I was cuddled against his chest, preferring the dark closeness of small spaces. I saw the ink along the back of his shoulder in the moonlight; I felt his warmth and smelled his body. Distinct and familiar. I parted my open mouth further, pressed my plump lips against the top of his bicep, and dragged them back together repeatedly. I started letting my tongue slip against his skin too, to taste him and his scent. 

“Why, you want him to hit you?” Yoongi asked.  
“No, fuck no…”  
“You want me to choke you, hmm?”  
“Not now I don’t!”

For the sake of honesty, I told him about my night with Taehyung. How intimate it felt. He didn’t mind, and boiled down to faith again. Knowing I’d come home even if I was Taehyung’s for a night. I doubt almost everything in life, but our relationship is one thing that never leaves me guessing. I think about it plenty, but I’m never worried about it the way I’m worried about virtually everything else. At the end of the day, I saved all of my love for Yoongi. My real love. My wholehearted, full-bodied love. I loved the boys all in different ways, and I wasn’t afraid to say it. But Yoongi was _my_ boy. And he knew that, just like I knew how he felt about me.

He described an in depth fantasy he has to me. We invite one guy over and explain this to him, and we role-play. The guy and I–maybe Hoseok, he thought–act like we’re dating for an hour. We can do whatever we want. Then, we ‘go to bed’ and lay right there. Yoongi comes in with a mask on, muscle shirt and whatever. He holds a gun to the guy’s head, ties him up in a chair, and makes the guy watch while he fucks me roughly. 

It’s like, a reverse cuckold. He likes the old-fashioned stuff, too. How else could he sit there that night with Seokjin? It was more of a communal freedom thing. I told him it was a hot idea, and he asked me if I had any elaborate fantasies. Nothing elaborate, no; the only one I had was being able to jack off to him fucking someone really brutally. Namjoon or Jungkook. Namjoon would be an unforeseen situation, so that’d be the real kicker. Hell, I’d watch him fuck Namjoon any day of the week, if we could somehow get Namjoon to agree to it - and to want it, of course. 

We spent another hour like that. Me licking his arm, him kissing my neck. Telling each other secrets and fantasies. It was an extensive series of preheated consent. At least that’s what it felt like. By the time we were done, he was fully erect. But sleep was close and sure, so I put him between my thighs and told him he could do what he wanted. Their warmth and thickness tempted him, but he only moved for a few minutes before drifting off too.


	28. Greedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I don’t kneel at pews, but I’ll crouch for a load. It’s a zephyr in a windowless room, shutting your eyes and embracing the fantasy._

At the end of the day, there’s nothing better than a good gloryhole. Unfortunately, wandering into a club or a library or a clinic and looking for the bad bathroom stall has never been my actual style. It’s always a fantasy; I’ve sucked a dick through a gloryhole before, but I _knew_ whose dick it was (take one guess). The pornographic thought of pleasuring a stranger not as an act of charity but because they are a toy to you, a piece of meat and nothing but a hard cock, is arousing. It’s a power trip, a selfish act of hedonism in the most beautiful way, because sex like that is _always_ selfish. 

At _Quake_ , Yoongi has a private bathroom connected to his office. He had water hooked up in there because he wanted a personal toilet and a sink he could leave things like a toothbrush on, and because I wanted a shower in case we wanted to spend the night - or fuck the right away. It’s clean, spotless tiles and freshly painted walls, but it looks like a public gym bathroom. Three showerheads and three drains; three sinks; four toilet stalls. And between the two stalls which are closest to the wall and entrance and furthest from the showers, there’s a gloryhole. I’ve blown him through that before. 

It’s exhilarating. Bobbing my head until my forehead’s against the cold metal. Pulling his balls through and feeling them twitch. With my boyfriend of all people, I love it all: the boy, the face, the hands. Everything. But when all you can see is a pretty portrait of pubes, cock, and sack, that’s art. That’s my religion. 

I don’t kneel at pews, but I’ll crouch for a load. It’s a zephyr in a windowless room, shutting your eyes and embracing the fantasy. Basking in the comfort of cleanliness, familiarity, and love while pretending the man–the entity–on the other side of the partition if _anyone_. High school history teacher. Librarian. Doctor. Dentist. Sexy gas station attendant. The only limit is your mind, and the amount of moves your mind can make in one turn, in one minute, in reimagining a sound you’ve heard so many times.

There’s a disconnect that becomes so thrilling, in a way. A sudden mutual disrespect which is unspoken, which is born of no physical or active effort. To feel lips, a wet mouth, a warm tongue, and nothing else. Eyes closed, because the world is boring, but on the other side of this cool metal divide, someone is working. Making slick noises, grunting and gagging and working. Working on you, but all you feel is this ghostly pleasure, like an apparition is pleasuring you, literally. You can’t see it happening like you usually can, like you always can, but you know it’s there.

Namjoon says the best orgasm he’s ever had was me giving him head through that gloryhole. We’re not in love, no; Yoongi likes looking at me, holding me even better. But Namjoon loves _that_ feeling. Some people can do what he does. Close their eyes, shut their mind off. Only feel, and perhaps, only hear. Limited senses and a resulting amplified intensity. They say that blind people typically develop better hearing. This is a temporary form of that. A thirty minute blowjob is enough to do that to somebody. To shoot so far they hit the opposite divider. To scream and buckle at the knees. To fall out of their position before you’ve had your way cleaning them. And that is the tricky part about gloryholes. Standing up, keeping yourself at that right angle, in the right posture. They’re either only a step up from a fleshlight or one of your biggest turn ons, and for people who identify with the latter, difficulty rings true here.

You can also fuck someone through a gloryhole. It’s a distanced doggy style, and it isn’t always fun or easy. The hole needs to be larger for it to even be possible. That’s an important point. You should also probably wear protection, assuming you aren’t in a uniquely personal position like I am in Yoongi’s office bathroom. Lubricant also helps, but honestly, I don’t find intercourse through a hole satisfactory. There’s no obvious change, it’s just clunkier, more difficult. Less comfortable for both parties. 

When you’re giving or receiving head, you know there should be a level of vulnerability, or candid intimacy. So when it happens through a hole and you can’t see much but you feel everything, you’re getting off on the lack of that awareness. That difference. That change. Something should be there and it isn’t, and its immediacy (of absence) makes the degree of enjoyment exotic. It’s an unknown pleasure for many, to hold secrets in arms but still share sex and fantasy and closeness and _cum_ with someone else.

There’s also some enjoyment in knowing you are someone else’s peak fantasy. This is more valid with regard to strangers, but even in intimate encounters, it can definitely hold true. To a stranger, I could be the ex they still love, the person who hurt them, their biggest crush, or a celebrity. To my lover, I know he’s imagined me as a woman before. And women don’t tempt him or cry for him or call his body, but he is as erotically demure (joke) and thoughtfully adventurous as I am. 

The impossible is enabled in this liminal space. It’d seem much more obvious if I described this space, with its bright lights and its harsh textures, as a dream. It’s easy to presume that anything sexual is possible in a dream. But what if I told you that anything is possible at a gloryhole? Any sex. A blowjob from anyone, or some unimaginable sexual encounter with whichever life you enjoy. There are insidious, evil uses for this power, and there are magical ones as well. But it’s better than a sex dream, and you can use your imagination to conjure anything of your liking.

There are pleasures and unknown comforts you’ve never imagined waiting for you through a harshly carved circle. Behind a locked door, a locked door that doesn’t unlock until you’re ready. Until they’re gone first, maybe. But the possibilities are endless. Nothing is better at demanding consent than a metal wall. You could marry those lips, come out and fuck them and take them home; and make love and kiss and fall, mutually. Or you could pretend those lips are something different, someone else altogether, and never know who they belonged to. 

No one’s going to hold your hair and force you down. The man who once violated you with a thrust you never asked for is now held back by metal. The power is yours; your teeth are wrapped around fragility. What do you do now?


	29. Could, Will, Would

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There was no perversion in our raw emotion that week, and it was a sign of soft and brotherly love which broke my heart and glued it back together with new allegiance. I know I can trust all of my boys, but in the business, Namjoon epitomizes loyalty._

“Jimin? Jimin…? Jimin… Jimin!”

I’m in bed, wearing nothing but another one of Yoongi’s jersey’s. Namjoon’s shaking me awake, which makes me suddenly realize that I’m otherwise alone in bed.

“Wha… where the fuck is Yoongi?”  
“He had some shit to settle. One of his brother’s business peeps showed up while you were asleep.”  
“Showed up? To my fucking house?!”  
“It’s okay! No one knows where y’all live, I promise.”  
“How do you know?” I sat up and rubbed my eyes.  
“‘Cause it’s only one guy, and he’s from the neighborhood. Doesn’t have big associates. You’re fine.”  
“So where is Yoongi? Why are _you_ here?”  
“He’s runnin’ with some boys. One boy. I’m takin’ you to my place for tonight.”

 

‘You’re safe, Jimin, but we need to relocate you.’ Yeah. That makes me feel _real_ safe. But I got up and put shorts on, grabbed my wallet, my phone, and my phone charger, and I left. I didn’t say a word to him on the ride, because I fell asleep in the passenger seat. He must have carried me in; I woke up on his couch with my feet in his lap. He was watching the television but it was turned way down, which is a level of consideration that only sober Namjoon was capable of. Problem is, sober Namjoon isn’t a common thing by any means. Another bad sign.

While worrying about safety was a big deal and obviously came first, Jihoon’s graduation was on my mind. I just wanted to give him a normal day of celebration, but here Yoongi was looking for a bullet wound to steal the thunder with. Namjoon’s phone started vibrating against his further thigh, and I felt it. He was wearing nothing but boxers, and the shaking traveled across the thin cloth and hit my foot. He sounded excited. (My eyes were still shut.)

“Hey, Yoongi!” (I opened them.) “Where you at? Oh, didn’t kill the sorry fucker? Good to go through the pigs anyway, man. Yeah, stay over there. Handle that shit, stay low. I’ll get someone to bring you a plant. Yeah, man, he’s with me. He’ll be fine, he’s all cozy and shit. He’s sleepin’. Ha-ha, kiss my ass. If he wants some, I’m gonna lay it down, man... I told you he was sleepin’, I can’t just hand ‘em the fuckin’ phone!”

I shot forward and grabbed it from him instead. He held his arms up, surprised, when I laid across his thighs and let my legs hang in the air as we spoke. Me, Yoongi, and my anxiety on a three-way call.

“Baby?!” I yelled, but I pulled my voice back fast. It was 4 AM. Didn’t want to wake Namjoon’s neighbors up, even less so considering the _hood_. “Where are you?”  
“Baby, listen… It’s nothing, I don’t want you to be scared and shit now. Guy doesn’t have shit for company, I had him arrested. He showed up at midnight after you smoked and knocked on the door. Started sayin’ some shit about my brother’s debt or whatever. I don’t even believe ‘em. I think he’s talkin’ out his ass, but don’t worry.”

He cleared his voice. “I love you, baby boy. Just stay with Namjoon tonight. I know you won’t be able to sleep; don’t give him too much hell. Unless he makes a move, then you beat the shit out of him and tell him it’s your kink.” A laugh. “I love you. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow.”

“I love you too.” I said without argument. He heard my pout and I heard his frown. “Bye.”

“Bye, Minnie.”

Namjoon took the phone. I rolled my eyes and fell back against the opposite end of the couch, pressing the soles of my small feet against the inside of Namjoon’s furthest thigh. The same thigh which touched the boxer short pocket he shoved his phone back into after making a text. Back where it came from. I was exhausted, the kind of fatigue where your eyes struggle to stay open and it’s so deep, so mental. Even when I managed to widely stare into space instead of falling asleep, my eyes stung and my brain was straining. It’s a symptom of a distraught circadian rhythm, and how couldn’t it be? Knowing you’re not supposed to be wide awake at a time. Sometimes, I’d stay up this late. But I definitely didn’t want to be awoken with utter panic four hours into my sleep cycle. Maybe I’d nap briefly and then pass out again later. All bets were off the table for now. Namjoon would keep me company.

“See, now I’m afraid to sleep at home.” I mumbled.  
“Don’t be. You got the toughest shithead in this fuckin’ country with his hand on your ass every night.” When Namjoon talked Yoongi up like this… well, they usually gave each other infinite shit. Nice words were for corny, happy days or times of hurt, and they didn’t come often. Seemed like every time I had to come here–to Namjoon’s apartment–because of something Yoongi did or had to handle, it was one of those days.

My heart flutters when I think about the way Namjoon kissed Yoongi’s lips the night of the Min father’s funeral. There was no perversion in our raw emotion that week, and it was a sign of soft and brotherly love which broke my heart and glued it back together with new allegiance. I know I can trust all of my boys, but in the business, Namjoon epitomizes loyalty. Blood. I trust him, and he makes me feel comfortable. Well, usually. Sometimes he’s a creep for fun, but it’s all manageable knowing that he’s ride or die at the end of the day.

“You know who Casper is?” He asked.  
“The ghost?”  
He laughed out loud. “Nah, the dude… The Chinese guy. Yoongi never told you ‘bout him?”  
“Uhh… no. Who is he?”  
“From Hong Kong, big in gang crime there, but he pushes the drugs for his mob family or whatever shit. We don’t have that shit here.”  
“Isn’t my boyfriend a fucking mob prince?”  
“Nah, that’s a business. They don’t go by blood there, they go by obedience. Loyalty. Anyway, I think he’s flyin’ over sometime.”  
“Okay. Thanks for… the warning? I guess.”  
“He’s cool, he’s cool.”  
“I have a headache.”  
“You’ve had a long day, can’t blame ya.”

I yawned and didn’t bother trying to cover my mouth. That got the point across. He looked to me and put his hand on my knee, and he slid it forward and started groping my thigh.

“Not today, Namjoon.”  
“Oh, yeah… yeah, of course. Of course not. Damn! Not gonna smash while Yoongi’s working! Shit!”  
“Yeah, I _know_ you aren’t.”


	30. Alpha and Omega

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A kink of the heart. I need to write that one down, Namjoon will have a fit._

There’s a myth, or a scientific finding whose evidence has been lost on me, which says that the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely it is that said boy is gay. The oldest Min brother is, as far as we know, straight. Yoongi is bisexual, but 70/30 or 80/20 in favor of guys. So, following this theory of hormones in utero, Jihoon _must_ have a thing for guys. If he’s got to be gay, and logically he does, then his biggest possible penchant for women starts at ‘gay best friend’ and stops at ‘homoflexible’. 

Physically, he strikes me as a bottom. But that role reversal has a funny way of coming out at awesome times. And he’s a submissive person in every way, but sometimes, those are the people who become incredibly dominant in bed. They reap sexual pleasure from claiming the control they never have in their daily lives, which makes sense.

In other words, there’s no way to know anything about any of his actual preferences, including his sexuality. We’re just _theorizing_. Seeking, and wishing to guide and protect a young adult from his own vulnerability in a ruthless world. And Yoongi thinks he might be _straight_ , anyway. We’re placing bets on it now. Gay and straight; top and bottom; dominant and submissive. Little check marks and little-r boxes.

With Jihoon’s graduation coming up, we were trying to figure out, again _theoretically_ , which of our friends he’d want to fuck if given the chance. Yoongi adapts to my homofancy assumptions for the sake of a second game and says that Jungkook would be the best sexual experience for him, but Hoseok would be kind of affectionate in a way (Jin would _not_ be up for this). I, more or less, agreed.

“Listen, I know he’s got the Min dick. I’ve seen it!” Yoongi said, rolling a blunt on our coffee table while I lay in the swivel chair.  
“I just don’t believe that your brother is hung, babe. He’s like, five-foot-nothing and he’s literally the chibi version of you. It’s impossible.”  
“What, you think I’m lyin’?”  
“No, but… ugh, okay, does this mean he’d be more likely to top?”  
“I’m telling you, he’s just too shy for girls. That doesn’t make him gay, Min.”  
“He’s too shy for anything; you wouldn’t be able to tell if he was secretly looking at all the male relatives funny because he _wouldn’t look at anyone_. I need to figure this out.”  
“Pfft, whatever.”  
“Okay, but if you _had_ to pick something gay, what’s your bet?”  
“Top for the dick, dominant just ‘cause.”  
“Some contrarian, you are.”  
“Keep using those words around me, pretty boy. I’ll put you in your place.” He spoke vaguely, but he winked. That meant something. “I just think he’s like us. I don’t know how else he could’ve survived in that house all those years without having a beast beneath.”  
“That was pleasant poetry too, you know. ‘A beast beneath’.”  
“Well, you know I got a beast beneath too.”

I laughed out loud. He kissed my cheek.

As the days passed, the speculation multiplied. I had most of the boys talking about it, and we had Hoseok in agreement with our plot. Jungkook too, and they’d both be available. So we went to the graduation, and I dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, and Yoongi wore a suit to cover his ink. And we cheered. We sat away from his mother until I more thoroughly explained what happened the day of her visit. After Jihoon did his ceremonial walk, all four of us came together for brief and standoffish words. But Yoongi is always cordial with his mother. He loves her the way only a son can _love_ a mother. In a true way.

(Does this feel rushed? Nothing significant or different happened. If you wanna know what went down so bad, go to a high school graduation next year. They’re all the same. You’ll wish you hadn’t and realize why the best way to honor a _thing_ that went on for _hours_ too long is to summarize it in a few brief sentences.)

“Where’s your brother?” Their mother asked Yoongi, referring to the oldest.  
“Well, he’s not dead.” Not much on what happened the other night, but I’ll live.

We leave and let Jihoon hang out with his friends or talk to his uncles or whatever, and we left. We got home, changed, called Hoseok and Jungkook. Everything’s set up, right? And Yoongi calls Jihoon and tells him he’s welcome over, and Jihoon says he’ll come soon. He had already told his mom he was going to spend the night with friends, which she somehow said was okay.

“I’ll bet you a hundred dollars.” I say.  
“Oh yeah? A hundred dollars of my own money?”  
“No, Yoongi. Money from Quake ad revenue. And if he doesn’t perfectly line up, we call the bet off.”

Stupid, stupid stupid. It was dumb to begin with. It’s dumb to make a game out of somebody else’s life. Even more so when you claim to love and respect them. I shouldn’t have, we shouldn’t have, but no one was hurt in all of our wrongness. It was dumb to drag Hoseok and Jungkook into this. It was even dumber when Jihoon knocked on the door. With a boy. A tall boy. I smiled.

Seungcheol. That’s his name.

Handsome. Nice thighs (competition, but not formative). They lingered on our couch, Yoongi smiling too brightly at the boy while I rubbed Jihoon’s neck. Hoseok and Jungkook came up with a lame excuse to head home. Probably jacked off in Hoseok’s car, or slept in a hotel with a bar in it.

We went to bed and they slept on the upstairs couch. We closed the door between our bedroom and the living room. 

“Does this mean I lose?” Yoongi didn’t look comfortable.  
“I’ll give you a handjob and rub your belly until you fall asleep, okay?” He wasn’t ready for Jihoon to be an adult. Not to explore with ‘friends’ or to have any fun with them; not to graduate and be a little man; not to enter the real world and scare the life out of him. I pulled Yoongi’s cock out and got him hard, and I got lube and everything, put the fan on, and went at it. I massaged the front of his torso and kissed his neck softly, but he ranted and raved while I serviced him. Kinda like me. Worries and things you only have to hum to, to confirm that the sounds graced your ears and that you love them so much. Them as in the person they come from, that is. 

But eventually he said, and the unit next door is empty now Min. What if? And I said, well, _what_ if? The idea was a bad one. He realized it when he thought about how close it could bring Jihoon to danger. Particularly after our recent encounter with local fuckups. But he was going to buy it anyway, to give us the entire building. The neighbors left last week. (I wonder how that went down…) And we wanted to rent it out to someone he trusted, like one of the boys - or _give_ it to his little brother. The perfect graduation present. A huge advanced start in life. It was an idea worth bringing up again later. 

He finally shut his eyes, and the sounds of his accelerating breaths overwhelmed his voice. His lips parted again, but not to speak. To moan. I knew this was a burden on him by his orgasm: thinner than usual, some odd bodily ritual of not being able to relax. I kissed his lips again, and he smiled real big. Satiated and content. I chuckled and kissed him again, and then I wiped him up with a towel.

The mood was far from me; I was a boyfriend masseur, not a sex fiend. Not now. And it was always funny, what my love felt like in this mode. This mind. When I wasn’t horny, I loved servicing him. It made me feel close to him, and it let me think about our romance and not just my own climax. A kink of the heart. I need to write that one down, Namjoon will have a fit. 

I waited until he was snoring (Yoongi snores), and I tossed the towel into the hamper and slid humble and secretive boxers on. Pulling the blanket up to his neck and making sure the air conditioner was cranked as he loves it, I snuck out of the bedroom and looked to make it downstairs.

I saw it, then. Our guest quilt strewn across the floor. Jihoon’s smaller body on top of his friend’s. Seungcheol’s voice was raspy, trying to silence himself. Receiving. It was surprising. I lost. And judging by the size of my boyfriend’s little brother’s balls, he really is a Min in every way. _Ugh_.

Really far from arousing. I thanked my own tricky hands that the door behind me hadn’t shut all the way, and I jumped back like a cat. Landed on my feet, stealthily, and I gently pushed the door closed again.

Yoongi was still sleeping. I was grateful for our private bathroom, because I could–and did–slip inside to drink half a gallon of water. I was just trying to get a snack, but this would fill me up fine. 

Jihoon really is an adult. And also a hung dom top. And gay. Which is like, not even breaking even. It’s a three to four win for Yoongi.

I didn’t predict this sentimentality. Didn’t think I cared, but I obviously _do_ care about Jihoon. This is cute, and really abhorring too. And I’m _so_ glad they’re doing it here. With red latex on, and with the privacy of comfort. I’m glad he’s comfortable here, with us. Because his mother wouldn’t have let them sleep in the same room, but me? I left condoms in the coffee table.

I crawled back into bed and held onto Yoongi, and I fell asleep fast. When I woke up in the morning, I was alone. (I didn’t get enough mornings in bed with my sweetheart, anymore.) Yoongi walked in, wearing pajama pants and carrying a plate stacked high with egg rolls and wooden skewers stabbing through cooked chicken. If I was so admirable to be more of a man, I could have popped a boner smelling it. He shut the door behind him, put it at my ankles, and kissed my cheek. He hopped behind me and started rubbing my back while I ate.

“Jihoon’s friend bought Chinese.” He whispered, kissing the back of my ear softly.   
“Friend…” I hummed, my voice altered from grease. I cleared my throat and spoke. “Yoongi, I saw them fucking last night. You win.”   
“Uhh… Funny, I was gonna say the same thing. Only… this morning. What?”  
“After I massaged you last night, I went to get a snack but saw your brother doggying Seungcheol. Like, hard. His balls were huge; I think you’re right.”  
“Well, I saw him getting it missionary this morning, but I just raised my voice. And nah, his dick is thinner than big. You ran away?” He laughed out loud.  
“You’re pure evil, Yoongi. A monster.”  
“You love it.”  
“So… bet off?”  
“Hey, my brother’s _actually_ open-minded. And versatile. Good for him. Speaking of versatile, it took us all these years…”  
“Not now, Yoongi. But yes.”  
“No, shh… not now. Eat. Just eat.”

I did eat. Like a fucking pig.


	31. Blue Jeans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _That boy on the side of the road felt the same way I do right now. Empty._

I once wrote a short story about a boy who was in a band, and he looked totally different when he was on stage. Not like he dressed up, like, he was an actual different person on stage. Imagine a movie where the same character is played by two actors who don’t resemble one another. Maybe they share the same skin tone, but that’s it. He felt the same, and he had the same mind, but he lived two lives. A lot of his friends knew they were both him, but sometimes he took obvious advantage of his situation. He found himself average at best on a typical day, but gorgeous as a performer. It was his normal, but there’s nothing normal about what’s been made of us. We appreciate ourselves at best, but we always want to be something–or _someone_ –else. But the grass is never greener on the other side. The best case scenario is that you love yourself, your body and your mind and your spirit, but you admire others and always take it too far. And we all seem to do it. None of us can just be truly secure in our own happiness. I don’t know why it is. I’m not sure if it’s because we objectify people, if it’s because we are or have become selfish, or if it’s just the way we are as animals and as sexual creatures.

I’m fine with my stomach, thighs, face, et cetera. Sometimes, I’m even fond of them. But I’ve never been ecstatic looking into a mirror. And you turn on the television, and you see the guy. The young actor, and he’s flashing his abs. His shirt’s loose, and when he pushes it back into his tight jeans, his dick moves. And you’re, or _I’ll_ , I’ll be sitting there thinking about everything. I wish I had that bulge. And even if I have muscle, that doesn’t matter. I’ll wish I had the shape of his torso, the inward curve or different thickness of his lower stomach or his legs. I’ll wish I had his proportions, his limb length measurements, his thigh narrowness or his knees or his feet. I’ll wish my pecs were shaped like his. On bad days, it haunts me. But even on a good day, I still have those thoughts. They’re vaguely, distantly unpleasant, they’re unarguably negative, and they’re burdensome.

I wish I could go back in time. I want to ask a caveman about his life. Does he feel envy like this? Is this another repercussion of natural evolution? Do I have sexual selection to thank for this? This tension, this constant reprehension. There’s a little voice in my head telling me that I shouldn’t feel this way. That I should be grateful and positive and that I should love myself. I have a few questions: do you have to be religious, faithful, spiritual, or morally self-righteous to train your own temperance to such a degree? What of those who bottle their frustrations up and end up ruining their lives when they pop? Also, is there even a right answer? Does everyone feel the way I do?

I had a dream last night. I looked at the stars on the side of a road. The breeze and the trees were eerie, and I was both at peace with the present and terrified of the virtually immediate future. I was smoking a cigarette. I felt the same, but I wasn’t lucid. Blue jeans and a black leather jacket. And I checked my phone, and I looked at pictures of myself, and I was someone else. He had a slender face compared to mine. Perfect teeth. Looked like he had lots of plastic surgery if I’m being honest, but I couldn’t care less. He was beautiful. He was… me. But we looked different, we _were_ different. He was shaped and had colored hair and the stance of an athlete, or an exotic dancer, or something. A man pulled over and picked him, picked me, up. That’s all I remember. 

I felt a closeness to him. I wondered if he’d come back, or–if at all–he was like the other Jimin. The house whore with a couple boyfriends and a darkness to his wandering thoughts. I wondered, I still wonder, how many of me there are out there. Maybe they don’t all look like me. The theoretical physicists who talk about multiple universes always say that for every decision, even the innate and endless options which nature chooses from silently, there is another world. And I don’t believe it couldn’t have been a past life, either, or a simultaneous relocation of my energy. Are there carbon copies of my energy, of my soul? My metabolism? No, no. Only one. That’s what sparks your consciousness. So there’s only one _real_ me. The one I’m aware of. Am I even linked to the other forms of me? Or do we just look alike, or not look alike? We must share something, no?

Jihoon and Seungcheol left as soon as they were done eating. The latter insisted the graduate pack what leftovers he wanted to keep before they left, but the rest remained on our kitchen counter. What a busy day it must be, to get frozen yogurt and make out with a cute guy in the back of his car, because you’re _free_. I was there, once. And now, I’m here: thinking about life, in loose clothing, eating room temperature Chinese food. I wish I could say that I’m at least happy while doing it, but life is so painfully mediocre, so dull at its core. Like a fresh apple turns brown when you take a bite and leave it alone. That’s how I feel. Wasted and bruised. Off-colored meat, rotting.

I shouldn’t need to get a job, go back to school, have sex, do drugs, or go out to not feel like this. The default, bored mindset is supposed to be a coincidental vacation. Watching videos online and eating shit all day. For me, being left alone with nothing to do is inevitable depression. That’s what I think it is, at least. A feeling entirely and accurately described as emptiness. I don’t think that’s supposed to happen. Maybe a good handful of people can relate, but I don’t think everyone can. It’s like getting sad at night, but it’s intense, and it permeates your entire mind and the entire day, too. 

What do people think of, before they make a decision? Do personalities automatically police actions and behavior, like that? Does everyone think of themselves as different people? Do people see two different faces - when they’re ready and when they’re not ready? When they’re happy and when they’re not happy? When they’re okay and when they’re not okay?

That boy on the side of the road felt the same way I do right now. Empty. He chose wanderlust over domestic conformity, but we both suffer. We both wish we felt something, wish we felt more. But he, he ran. He looked for something. Something thrilling. That’s the difference between us, me and him. He thinks there’s something else out there. He thinks the emptiness is escapable. I don’t. I stay still, and I accept. I don’t think there’s anything else out there. 

My life is as perfect as it can ever be; my body is as lovable as it ever wishes; my opportunities skate on thick ice, but I… I always wait. I always wait for spring, before I put my skates on. And _nothing_ ever changes. And that’s okay. Maybe that’s how things are meant to be. Maybe this is normal, and that’s fine. It’s still a life worth living. I can’t know what it’s like when we die, and I don’t gamble. Being here is life. Life is worth living. Even if you’re like me.


	32. Breathe on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _That feeling pulled me back to the ocean, and I was fixated on it._

It’s weird to think about back and forth judgment like an erect dick, right? I mean, I’m thinking about being beneath Yoongi. And he’s large, long, and when he’s really hard, you can smack him and he keeps his shape but shakes. There’s that phallic obsession, that lustful curse and that physical trap. I could explain the world through erotica, through phallic metaphors and other dirty symbolism. I might get tired after a while, though. That’s the affliction of humanity, our collective bag of rocks: when we want sex, it’s all we need. We’ll do anything, fuck anyone over. Some people are better at handling anticipation, balancing and budgeting patience, but irresistibility is the gist of it. When it’s over, the world goes back to clear colors and clarity. Even the most humbly average folk live a double life. In their own personal world, they have at _least_ two different modes. Operative states of mind. _That’s_ what I’m talking about. Undeniable, flowery disco. 

Universal truths. My hips were swaying, pressed back against his crotch as he held me from behind, kept a blunt in my mouth with his index finger and thumb at its hilt. Puff, puff, puff, puff, puff. No pass. I was wearing normal shorts, typical clothing, but no underwear beneath. A bright blue, and a white tank top, and sneakers that were white and black, and matched my bottom too. And low-cut, white socks. And a black bracelet, a V.I.P. bracelet, worn from a night in the club… dinner in the restaurant, and now, seclusion in his office. His hands wandered; he held my chest and grabbed me down there. Kissed my neck and took the burnt paper off my lips, finishing the rest in one heavy huff. 

Everything was cool. The warm summer night was chilly with the fans running like this, far away from the windows. The large private bathroom door cracked open, smoke from the office flooding outward. Jungkook’s voice followed.

“Yoongi, you got more dope?”

I laughed. He pulled away from me with an unenchanted sigh, sliding back to sit his ass on the front of his desk - legs lifting and wrapping around my waist from behind. I laughed. My mind still moved fast, but my lips didn’t want to say anything. I couldn’t interrupt my consciousness’s articulations to try and speak out loud. That’s what pot does to you. I laughed.

“Yeah. Fuck…” His voice echoed in my head while he pulled something from his desk and tossed it to the younger. “What’s goin’ on in there, man?”

“Just watched Namjoon shoot something up, that was fucking gross… Jin’s high… Uhh… I don’t know.” His lower lip was shaking erratically.

“Speed.” I said. Yoongi chuckled: “Yeah, maybe. Eh, Jungkook, don’t worry about it. Let me know if anyone needs a ride home. So like, if anyone’s not cool with passing out in there. Or… in here, if they wanna watch. But the couch is ours.”

“That’s cool, you got some blankets in the closet right? Pillows and shit? Yeah.”

He went back into the bathroom and I tilted my head back, resting it on Yoongi’s shoulder and closing my eyes. They filed in, all five of them. Hoseok looked sober. Taehyung was drunk. They looked through one of the sturdy, heavy black filing cabinets in the corner of the room and pulled shoddy sleepover gear out. There wasn’t necessarily a surplus, but we had crashed here before. In the direct line of danger, and yet, behind more security and protection than we ever had at home. The black leather couch directly across from us was easy to sink into it, and it already had two pillows and a dark green comforter on it. I hadn’t been paying attention the entire night, until Yoongi picked me up and put me there. On the most comfortable couch I’d ever sat on, even more of a fluffy cloud than the one at home. 

And the boys set their urban camp up in front of his desk, laying out. Jungkook was the only one sitting up, his arms wrapped around his knees, staring wide-eyed. The rest were only half paying attention: Namjoon lying behind him, stomach to Jungkook’s ass with a lazy opiate smile; Seokjin with a marijuana grin with his back against the steel desk; Taehyung half asleep with his head in Hoseok’s lap, who was playing with his hair and smiling at the two of us with an absent minded stare. He must have gotten contact high by now, with the visible, eye-stinging smoke venting out into the bathroom at a slow rate. But it was gone by the time I realized Yoongi and I were both naked. I reached down to grab his ass with both hands and held on as he grinded against me, and that’s when I felt his cock moving left to right and back again. He was thrusting and the sheer size and smooth curvature of him meant he surfed across the definition of my musculature like a predator shark.

That feeling pulled me back to the ocean, and I was fixated on it. Foreheads pressed, our eyes locked and he teased me, we teased each other. I smelled his warmth and his masculinity and his breath, an odorous whiskey and a wrapper. I kissed his lips with my eyes shut, opening them and allowing my head to droop to the side while he marked my neck. I saw Jungkook pleasuring himself, his jeans around his thighs. I saw their faces and their hair colors and I looked back to Yoongi feeling drained. And I told him to: to wrap his hands around my neck. He was firm, but gentle. He pulled his hips back. Jungkook was behind him in a blink of _my_ eyes, spreading lubricant across Yoongi’s endowment and slapping my ass when he was done sliding a slick finger inside of me. A whimper of a moan escaped without me noticing it.

I was rock hard, then, and suddenly so. There was something so erotic about a handler having to prepare us like that. Like we’re breeding animals. And my roundness and his largeness, it only made it hotter. That almost devilish look Jungkook had, and yet, he was still so powerless. I remembered the fantasies I had before, of Yoongi brutalizing one of the boys. In that moment, I wanted to see the tears. A gun in a mouth or to the head and words without a hint of intimacy. But I pulled my legs back and took him myself instead. His motions weren’t unusual, but his hands were, and they made each thrust feel rougher than it normally would have.

I started mumbling something, something about being his bitch and about being somebody’s toy or something. And I went on, whispering, mumbling about being big and throbbing and gaping but tight, and my voice grew quieter while my intent became braver. Because his hands tightened, expertly clinging to the sides of my neck. I told him how to, one time. My thighs and my lower back felt cold. My moans were choked; they stopped coming out at all. My stomach dropped and my hips shot up, and it felt like vicodin. Orgasming on the edge of asphyxiation is peaceful. But it escapes you. And y


	33. Warm Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I held his hand on my chest. If he could feel my heartbeat, maybe that meant I was alive._

Yoongi was downstairs with Jihoon and Seungcheol. How did you meet? Well, young man, how old are you? What path do you wish to tread down, in life? The man of the house; his own kin’s patriarch. Upstairs in our bedroom, I sat cross-legged on the floor across from Namjoon. He played R&B from another country as we pumped blunts and replaced the air with smoke. Doors stuffed with wet towels, window’s covered, hats appropriately thrown about across the walls. Nooks and crannies, not water sprinklers and fire detectors. The music was carried by a moderate volume. The grey was heavy. I was crying, and doing everything I could to prevent the sobs from moving my chest. When I choked on my spit and my snot, I’d cough and he’d think both were because of the pot. He gave me a round pill and told me it would help me take my mind off things.

Night is always so empty, like this. I inhabit a dull, distant, physical form of dread and view death as a sweet, inevitable victory. An end. He figured out the tears were real and I laid in his lap after he pulled me onto the bed. We fixed positions and I pressed my cheek against his abs and drooled. A pool of tears collected between his stomach and the ditch between my nose and my eye. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t have to. That’s just who Jimin is. Heart too big to handle. A social master and an overflowing, volatile explosive of emotion. The grass kicked in and I was simply floating. Less than present. My problems were still there, but I scrutinized them from above instead.

He asked me if I was alright. I told him I had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling. In my gut, in my digestive system, in my nerves. 

The next day, when everything cleared up and everyone but Namjoon left, I went to visit my mother alone. I cried at her feet, and she didn’t seem to mind. My father seemed concerned, sitting there still. I told him the truth: that I felt like running away. The tears just kept pouring, no mercy for me. I told him that I didn’t think I could handle everything that was about to happen. He asked me what I meant. I told him about my bad feeling, and that I was afraid. I was afraid to start losing people, dropping things. He gave me his spiel, and reminded me where my problems–and my brains–come from. Life is all about change, he said. He was empathetic because he had my heart when he was my age. He told me, reassured me, _tried_ to reassure me that everything gets better. But I wasn’t reassured. I was listening, and I was hearing him, but I wasn’t feeling it. 

I could have found a better life. I was above water, when I was born. But we stayed in the neighborhood, and I fell in love with the worst boy around, and now my life is a tragedy, and its only question is “How long will this go on before it ends?”

I can’t do the same thing for more than thirty minutes. I run around like a headless chicken and I’m seldom excited about anything. The pain, the drugs, the sex. I live high to high, waiting for the next feeling. I didn’t want to be at my mother’s funeral. It was the right thing to do, the good thing to do, but I’m a hedonist. I care about myself and my own well-being, and that isn’t because I’m a selfish person. It’s because I’m not in a good place. I’m not a taker, I’m a caretaker. If I was in a great place, I’d do everything for my family. But I’m not in a great place. I’m sick. I’m ill. I need to worry about myself. We’re on a tanking plane, and I need to put _my_ air mask on first, or I’ll pass out before I can manage even one other person’s.

I apologized, and I left my love and my hopes and my dreams and my fears, and I left. I walked to Namjoon’s apartment, which was the only good part of knowing someone who lived so close to the epicenter of our memories. He let me cry again, watched me lay out on his couch from an armchair until he showed me a plastic bag of pills, and a needle next to it. He said, no dope. Yoongi would kill me. So he took the needle away and I took four pills. I rolled onto my back and I waited. He sat next to me and kept offering me a cold water bottle, which I couldn’t decide to hold or put down. I held his hand on my chest. If he could feel my heartbeat, maybe that meant I was alive. It was hot outside. So, so hot outside. And the feeling of his tower fan blowing on my face was depressing. Maybe I thought I was outside, on the road. My eyes were glazed over in a teal smog. I thought I took a nap, fell asleep for five minutes. I was wrong.

Yoongi called Namjoon when I didn’t answer my phone, because it was on silent in my pocket. He told Namjoon to go to my parents’ house and look for me. Namjoon told him I was already here, and that I was hysterical. He came over and spent the night, which means it was my fault that nobody was home all night. Which mattered when we drove back the next morning and saw the carcass of what used to be our home. Bullet holes, broken windows. Cop cars out front with awkward looking officers trying to keep the story of spreading to the federal level, because that would be the end of all of us. 

Electronics were gone. My computer, which had nothing on it, because I fucking wiped it before I went to see my mother in a fit of paranoia. Of rightful fear. And our cellphones were with us. No information was gone. We don’t have pets to kill in spite. We don’t care very much about our television or our cheap decorations. All at once, I was heartbroken about the violation of our domestic comforts, haunted by the confirmation of my darkest of hearts, and transcendent on the meaninglessness and pointlessness of _home_.

Walking through the house hurt. Nothing was worth taking. Nothing was special. Yoongi went upstairs and took our safe box, which had the only truly important things stuffed inside of it: documents, photo albums. We technically had everything, there. And I went into the kitchen, and I looked at my untouched brugmansia plant on the deck. I asked the officers for a few moments alone, and Yoongi came down into our dismantled kitchen and stood with me as I brewed half of the angel’s trumpets into a dense tea. I asked him where his drugs, his money, and his guns were. He told me all of the money was at the club; the guns are still in the safe; the drugs were untouched, besides the bud on our (now old) end table. 

He shoveled the guns and pills and plants and vials into a duffel bag, and I filled a large travel mug with my impeccably sweet-smelling concoction. 

I don’t know what came over me, but while we were walking out of the house, I took a sip of the tea. It tasted like lavender and cherries. When I dropped to the ground and slammed my head, the revolution of my upper body continued through the wooden floor, and my shoulders jumped forward. I was awake: at Namjoon’s apartment, in his bed. I _hadn’t_ wiped my computer’s hard drive, and Yoongi _hadn’t_ called Namjoon looking for me. A simple text from Namjoon was enough. I was alone. There was a used needle on the dresser which sat at the foot of his bed, and a cotton swab bandaged onto my arm. And that’s why I never do heroin.


	34. Heaven Is a Place on Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He looked so sorry. I wasn’t sure what for._

They say there’s a bit of truth in every lie. Likewise, I believe every dream is grown–born from, inspired by–a premonition of reality. As I’ve said before, it doesn’t have to be a part of _your_ waking life. It might be a vision of another world, or a sympathetic spell of understanding. The finer feelings of this complication is none of my business. But being fast enough to take advantage of such a gift precisely _is_. I’m in the market for burdensome luck, and a wit much quicker than I’m used to.

Yoongi never called the next morning. Concerned, Namjoon and I dressed and headed over there as soon as our anxiety had finished wasting our collective time. On the way over, I told him about my dream. When we got there, everything was normal except for one thing: there was a black van out front. I told Namjoon to wait outside; he toyed with a switchblade as he nodded in agreement, hiding his handgun between his legs as I stepped out and knocked on the front door.

Yoongi answered the door in a tellingly uncharacteristic fashion: an uncomfortable smile, eyes wide like a deer bleeding out. His words were overly formal. He welcomed me with intimacy fit for an audience. On the couch, an older looking man sat with a silver briefcase on the coffee table in front of him. I looked to him with a misleading grin, and then back to Yoongi as he spoke. His tone was sufficiently secretive, but his gaze was empathetically and pathetically in need. “This is one of my brother’s good friends. Could you make us some tea? He just got here.”

I don’t know if those were his exact words, because my mind was already calculating ways through this fleshy, bloody barrier. Yoongi didn’t look so distant and emotionally aloof because he was scared. He knew this was my coming-of-age. Jihoon had tasted indirect responsibility for death so recently, and now, I had to commit my first murder. And I wanted to.

I was excited from adrenaline. The borderline between _that_ and nerve is thin. I walked through the living room and bowed deeply to the stranger, speaking with impeccable forwardness, careful grammar, and the lust of the black widow. His salt and pepper hair told a tale of rank, and his skin was worn. I continued on as Yoongi sat down oddly close to the man. Likely a precaution our _guest_ had requested.

There were two issues before me: how could I be sure that Yoongi truly wanted me to kill this man (Would we have to run from dangerous people as a result of my misinterpretation and massive fuck up?), and how could I deliver my favorite yet previously unused weapon surely (I could almost perfectly predict this man requesting to switch tea cups with Yoongi, because who wouldn’t after presenting themselves as a threat?). My first question was answered by a note Yoongi had managed to leave on the back of the box of sugar that was in the cabinet above the stove. He must have swindled his way into the kitchen in the middle of their dialogue, or done so in the blink of an eye before answering the door. Heaven is a place on Earth, it read. An urgent demand.

I opened the screen door to the deck and left it open as I cut fresh root and petal. On my way back in, I managed a glimpse of the living room. Their voices were a fine mixture of pronounced, empty small talk and whispers. Yoongi sounded submissive, and the man’s voice was sharp. I wanted to know if he was alone, who his associates were if he had any. What would this carve for us, out of the cheap and unreliable bar soap that is the future? But I had no time to ponder my own luxuries or wax philosophical. I pressed the tea for real, exactly as I had in my dream. With my two feet planted firmly against the tile, I boiled dust and leaf together in a nice pot. I’d have to throw it away, when all was said and done. My brew was a dense mix, and the smell was sweeter than the flower’s aroma was alone. The taste would be pungent, like this. I felt no compulsion to sip at its deadly, steaming tides this time. 

I sprinkled sugar inside and strained the product into two cups. The filter would have to be disposed of too, and the tea cups as well. Such docile thoughts during panic. I was ready to serve and couldn’t let the tea get cold. That was that. He would make Yoongi switch cups, and then make him take the first sip. Sitting and watching and smiling. I had to anticipate that. 

Yoongi has one ferocious allergy: peanuts. But me? I can’t get enough of peanut butter. It’s locked away in a corner of our many kitchen cabinets. He can’t have it. He can smell it, but if he tastes it, if it touches his sensitive skin, he throws up. Projectile vomiting. A guaranteed stomach ache, like a hangover with an appetite. I spread peanut butter around the rim of _both_ cups with my finger, I put them on a serving board, and I move fast. 

I bowed my head. I explained the style choice, that it would enhance the flavor, that the smoothness would create an exotic taste. And most importantly, that I knew because I had done it before. Yoongi’s constant cringe never changed. Our guest was grateful. He didn’t ask to change tea cups, he just took the cup I put in front of Yoongi himself. Yoongi picked the other up. I smiled and stood there. I showed my teeth. He looked to Yoongi and raised his cup, but waited. Yoongi took the first sip and smiled to me. After a few seconds, the man laughed and took a few heavy gulps. A regional, cultural taste for sweet tea, and a stranger’s compliant hunger for such, saved my life. I was fascinated by fate.

One minute later, Yoongi’s throat began to bloat. The contents of his stomach–including the brugmansia–covered the coffee table. The man looked at him, alarmed. He couldn’t express that he was shocked I’d kill my own friend or roommate just to kill him, throat swollen in a different way. (He assumed they had both received the same thing.)

Well, they had. But isn’t it funny, how even with the same experiences, we can view life differently, and feel opposite ways about it? Yoongi threw up, and he saved his own life through a virtually fatal flaw. I wondered, like complicated consent, if I had tried to kill him or if it counted that I had a thought out plot. I was more fascinated about the way our guest grew silent. It looked like a stroke, at first, but his back arched violently and he seized. He was sweating profusely. 

All Yoongi had inherited from the tea was the sweating, and he had ran for the downstairs bathroom by then, which was very close to where we were all casually spending our time. He vomited in relative comfort while I moved to sit beside the man–one Mr. Bang, as Yoongi would tell me later–and smiled. I embraced the smell of my boyfriend’s digestive system and reached for the brief case while Mr. Bang loudly shook, falling to the floor and throwing up himself. His was the color red, however.

His wails were obnoxious. Namjoon had barged in by then, an alarmed stare as he looked to me and then to Yoongi. He raced to comfort his friend instead; I held the silver briefcase in my lap and stared. A part of me thought about groping the man, kissing his body as he died. Another part contemplated kicking him in the crotch, or cutting an appendage off. But instead, I watched. In fashion language, I put all my accessories on and then took the last thing off. I appreciated the simplicity of my plot and my evil and I thought about everything. What my parents would think, how my mother would feel. How totally unnecessary it is for anybody to know about this.

The brew was so heavy that Mr. Bang’s hallucinations were not temporary bouts of insanity which would result in permanent trauma. He was on a one-way road to death, and the ugliest death possible at that. Foaming at the mouth, twitching, convulsing. Then, locking up altogether. It was quite the trauma to _watch_. While I did, Namjoon moved into the kitchen and grabbed water for Yoongi, who eventually recovered from his allergic reaction and tripped on his way to the stove, near which he could grab beef jerky and crackers to satiate his body. He would take the risk (his stomach was sensitive and may not accept food immediately, but he always tried). They held a broken conversation beneath the kitchen table while I saw the life in Mr. Bang’s eyes disappear. I didn’t pay attention to the words on who he was, though he was undoubtedly a man of crime. I only asked, what’s in the box? And what did he want?

A gun, he said. And he wanted millions Yoongi’s brother owed him. He felt it was a liability the Min family’s business owed him at large. Where do we go from here? To find his brother? Escape to somewhere else? Try to figure a new life out?

Namjoon and Yoongi’s friends would come and go as the hours passed, and when one of them asked me if I wanted to keep the body as a joke, I considered it. I said no immediately, and I laughed. But there’s nothing more freeing than dismantling a threat. Defiling it. Consuming it, so to speak, like the black widow. Only the black widow gets to fuck them first, and she eats them. I have no interest in committing to anything beyond neat dismembering. But he left, in spirit and then in body, and I still knew little of him more than that his spirit would haunt this house forever.

I felt bad for Yoongi. His face was flushed and his throat was swollen. He said nothing, but he looked at me. He took the box. Namjoon took me to Seokjin’s apartment. Yoongi stared at me before we left, before he went to his cousin’s house, who’s a nurse. He looked so sorry. I wasn’t sure what for. Was it for presenting the danger? Was it for building the perfect life for me just to ruin it? For taking me from my difficult life and robbing me of any chance at a bright future for love? Was it for forcing me to directly murder someone? Or was it because he could tell I didn’t mind, and he knew that was his fault? Because he was a killer, and I loved him so much that I accepted that. So I learned to accept it about myself. It was like a tattoo; you get one, suddenly, you’re a tattoo person. You’re someone with ink. And that’s a part of your identity. He’s a killer, and so am I.

The smell of stomach acid had worn me down. I had heartburn. Bad heartburn.


	35. Lost and Sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I used to run my toes through our upstairs carpet, feeling like this. A carpet I’d never see again; a carpet I’d never get back._

I stayed at Namjoon’s apartment another night while he and Yoongi ran operations out of our garage. Arranging discreet, trustworthy cleaning crews, tracing Mr. Bang’s social network, measuring their assets and balancing threat levels with security and other proper precautions. Between other errands and doing their best to avoid the body until everything was gone, Yoongi would pack the backseat of his truck with our few precious things while Namjoon did the fieldwork. From what I’ve been told, it was like my dream all over again, only I wasn’t there. Our strongbox. My computer. Drugs, guns, cash. Photo albums, things of sentimental, unique, and personal value. He laid my–our–guest quilt over it all once he was done. Such a thin piece of fabric, compared to all of the crazy things hidden beneath it. He tucked its edges in and did his best to prevent the smell of marijuana from escaping.

He moved his truck, to hide it in Namjoon’s parking space overnight. Namjoon brought us back the next morning to check up on things; to make sure nothing went horribly wrong, and to give me a personal chance to scavenge the house for closure.

Or belongings, I guess.

That plant doesn’t have much of a use now, does it? Served its purpose. Their angels trumpeted _someone_ to heaven.

Yoongi knows me well. He gathered everything, even the small stuff, and accepted that most of our belongings were generic and only meant memories. There was only one thing he had forgotten, which is quite impressive, if you think about how many tiny things there are lying around your house at any given moment. One of the cups my mother used to drink tea out of in the mornings. There were still a handful at my parents’ house, but I took one with me when I left. I realized when I looked through the foul smelling cabinets that I had used it yesterday. For my magic. I wasn’t sure who I had given it to, and I wasn't sure it mattered. 

It was with a heavy heart, that we drove away. That I was driven away. Sometimes, all I want is a hug from Yoongi, to be held. But lately, I just don’t want to be touched. I watched the front door shrink in the rearview mirror, draped across the backseat. Wondering, fearing, that it would be my last time seeing that place. I knew it was.

I said I would avoid heroin, but after such a trial of humanity, I let Yoongi measure a dosage for me. He left me with some, too. Said that he and Namjoon had to be gone for the night, more business. And he warned me not to do anything stupid; reminded me of how devastated he’d be, guilted me into obedience. (I’d _never_ purposefully overdose to begin with. I love the thought of dying, on occasion, but I never pursue it myself.) I told him I didn’t want to be alone again, especially at a place like that. In the neighborhood. So we called our friends though it was already late. Seokjin said he’d take care of me for the night. Jungkook volunteered to tag along, if we wanted the company. I thought it’d feel overwhelming.

I kissed Yoongi goodbye when they dropped me off. I was wearing one of his black leather jackets and grey sweatpants. Red converse. I waddled up to the door and Jin welcomed me with a hug. By then, I was already so high that I was feeling simply suave. Relaxed, calm, and confident. I was the black widow. Namjoon already made an inappropriately timed joke about it, when he mentioned noticing me staring at that old man’s crotch as he withered. I didn’t fuck him, no. Not at all. But the spider killer doesn’t have to. They simply must murder, do so in a stealthy and cunning manner, and enjoy it. Cherishing the sight of a slow and painful death is more street cred funneled towards the moniker, of course. Like an investment of truth. Maybe I’d have to do it again to make it real.

Seokjin hugged me and didn’t say anything, but it was clear he felt empathy. I appreciated it, but I was far gone. I didn’t need his help, but I admired his softness still. In his bedroom, I stripped down to nothing but the black briefs I was wearing beneath my clothing. I kicked the rest into a pile on the floor in the corner, readjusting the red waistband of my underwear to smooth the fabric out. He gave me a wet washcloth even after I told him I had already showered. My orange hair, which was a distant echo of red, had faded to peach long ago. Now, it was a greyish-blond you’d find in the paint section of a supermarket labeled ‘toasted marshmallow’. I clung to the peach hue, though, because dyeing it again was not my top priority. And I hated that it was still a concern. I wanted a bright cherry again, to go with my dark eyes. He smiled and agreed with me when I voiced the thought. Maybe he felt bad, and like doing this would be something nice. Something to take my mind off things. By the time the bleach had come and gone and my hair was red, the sun was close to rising. I texted Yoongi, knowing he was still out, seeing the same sunrise. He told me it was a good idea.

We were in bed, then. Trying to sleep. Together. He started spooning me from behind, and then I turned around. Facing each other, I moved our noses intimately together. I hugged him, rubbed his back. He did the same. I waited for his hands to move lower, and they never did. So mine did instead, tickling his outer thigh gracefully, slowly. Sliding inward, tracing his shape. His bulge, which was larger than his already sizable flaccid state. He was excited, though I’m not sure I was. I know I wasn’t. I wasn’t horny, didn’t feel like having an orgasm, didn’t think I’d enjoy the pain. _Didn’t_. But I needed to feel loved, I think. Maybe in control. So we moved, and I sat on his lap, and he sat up and started biting his lower lip, looking at me with a glazed over stare, lubricating himself and pleasuring himself for a while. The wet sounds were melodic, then. Slick sploshing. Everything felt good on heroin. The way he touched me, the warmth of his body, the shape of us. I used to run my toes through our upstairs carpet, feeling like this. A carpet I’d never see again; a carpet I’d never get back.

In middle school, some things were different. Namjoon and Seokjin seem like acquaintances willing to share a laugh nowadays, but they used to be best friends. Yoongi and I have always been closest, but shortly before we started dating in high school, I contemplated a crush on Seokjin for about a year. Maybe that’s why I’ve had dreams–short and long, major and minor–of dating him. Because at a young, volatile, and vulnerable point in my early life, I thought I was in love with him.

Such affections are virtually worthless, now. They epitomize child’s play in a deeply emotional way. The friendship Namjoon and Seokjin shared was a developmental symbiosis that is easily overshadowed by the closeness of Namjoon and Yoongi today; the same can be said for my old flame for Seokjin in juxtaposition with my since relevant long-term relationship with Yoongi. We were growing: learning how to socialize, navigating freedom in a world of universal oppression - something we longed and lusted for, given our desire to live alternative, deviant lifestyles. Queerness and liberation from cultural boundaries. That’s the four year university education talking, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

If I get high enough to think of things and recall old feelings in color, I can imagine how Seokjin might feel bitter. Losing his best friend and the love interest he hardly reciprocated both to Yoongi.

He isn’t, of course. He’s a positive person, at peace. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind, and I believed it. But it did cross mine. I thought something of it when he said those words. _I love you._ I told him before I didn’t mind it; that it was an affectionate play, and that in its own way, it was true. A friendly love, and perhaps a lecherous love, but not a romantic one. That’s how it was conceptualized; that’s how he meant it. That’s how _I_ meant it, or how I would have. So I got it. I understood. It wasn’t unique to him. With enough liquor, I’d hear it between Yoongi and Namjoon while they made out on the couch (I enjoyed this, intimately and sexually). Under the stars and the moon and in his dark apartment, I felt those things with Taehyung. I told it to Hoseok in an amicable way often. Jungkook’s said it with his lips against my backside. But Seokjin sounded like he was running the routine for the sake of simplicity, to blend in. And I wasn’t sure how genuine he was: if he meant it more or less than I was thinking, or if he meant it the way I had come to understand it at all.

I sat in genuine silence instead, the olive musculature of my naked body glazed in sweat; odd pupils, wide eyes, agape mouth, and drool dripping down my plump lower lip. That shape, that phallic size, did its job. No matter what the mood, it still tapped my prostate. And bundles of nerves, sensitive pleasures like that, do not discriminate. It didn’t matter if I was feeling awkward or conflicted, or if I had been thinking about a man I killed seizuring to death while kissing Jin’s lips. It still felt good, and it didn’t give me time to think otherwise. I admired it like vicodin, like that.

He held the back of my neck in one hand and my ass in the other, forearm draped across the closer cheek as he squeezed and thrusted. Pushing upwards, his low grunts introduced powerful motions, and I was panting and moaning involuntarily from waves of bliss. But when he finished, it didn’t feel like anything. The faintest of throbbing, but the traveling pulsations, from hilt to tip were invisible. I couldn’t feel them, this high. I couldn’t feel much this high. I wonder if a life you aren’t strong enough to handle all of is worth living. I wonder if I’m really living a life, if I have to be high to get through it.

I woke up at one, hearing the three of them speaking in the living room. Seokjin, Yoongi, and Namjoon. I think I drifted off again, and I opened my eyes to see Yoongi looking at me from the doorway. Smiling at me. Jin’s grin was as blank as Namjoon’s, when Yoongi hugged me and crawled on top of me in bed, but he looked pained. Yoongi told me he loved me and that everything was going to be okay. I told him I needed a shower and convinced them to give me twenty minutes in the bathroom alone. Jin was the only one who knew what mess I had to dispel of. Maybe he felt special for that. When I was done, I put on what I came in and sat next to Yoongi.

I wanted to know where we were going. We’re going wherever we need to, he said.


	36. Ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I didn’t have to be high, and I still didn’t know why. This was amazing, and I couldn’t help but wonder if my new found status brought it to life._

That’s life on the road, isn’t it? But we were urban runners, not fairytale countryside bandits. We stayed in the city, and as a result, were never more than an hour away from home. My home. His home. Our home. And Namjoon’s home, and Seokjin’s home, and Hoseok’s home, and Jungkook’s home, and Taehyung’s home. Home. Home as a whole; home as a collective, and an extended neighborhood. A network of friendship and trust and reliability. Means a lot when you’re homeless, so to speak. But I don’t feel homeless. Yoongi belongs to an industrial nomadic fantasy, and I like the feeling of the wind in my hair, life on the run. Breezing on the edge, and road head when it’s needed.

It’s only been a week, but we’d go for drives like this multiple times a day. Get some ice cream, whatever. Stay at somebody’s house, crash in a beautifully seedy motel, or–most often–stay at the club. His office was a permanent sleepover destination; he could work from home in a different way now, with our townhouse officially on the market and out of our hands. I thought this felt even better, or maybe it was just the excitement of change and something new that had me glowing. Living out of the business my lover made for himself was admirable, raw in power, and sexy overall. (Crime being the cause of this uprooted trauma aside.) There was no better feeling than being in the truck and knowing my entire life was in the backseat, just an arm’s reach away.

I’d sit on my phone in the passenger seat, plugged into a mobile charger, and smile for an hour. Texting all of our friends, playing app games, and surfing the web. Yoongi and I had every moment of the day together, and the best sex we’d had in ages, sober or not. We’d take a day-trip to some scenic town and I’d be playing with him the entire time: with my mouth, with my hands, or just resting with my cheek in his lap. The front seat had no center console, and it was wide like a sofa. Big enough for three or four of us. Roomy. I could lay down like that, even sleeping beneath his moving hands. At peace. I didn’t have to be high, and I still didn’t know why. This was amazing, and I couldn’t help but wonder if my new found status brought it to life. After all, you don’t have to have tattoos to be a slick antiestablishment punk. I do have five piercings though, and one on the left is a cartilage stud. All that silver can look a bit scary, I bet. 

Did I feel equal to Yoongi, now? Was that it? Was this all about joining the exclusive club, the cabal, that nobody really asked for attention from? Was taking someone’s life an inevitable high I was waiting to experience? It was the way I did it, really. Slick. An unsuspecting prey. And watching him cringe to death was exhilarating. That it was kill or be killed mattered little, despite the fact that it wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Despite the fact that I acted out of fear for my security and my partner’s life.

Facts aren’t romantic. 

I wasn’t shy with the vicodin, but I veered away from the heroin following that assassination dosage. I want to have a good time, not die. Still, I was in my right, clear mind more nowadays than I was before, though... I appreciated everyone, and everything, more.

My beautiful boyfriend. And I’ll call him that again: the big-dicked twink, skinnier and taller than me. Covered in ink, who wears gold in his ears and has a gorgeous smile, milky white skin, and balls about the size of chicken eggs. (Maybe a little bigger; I don’t know what I’m talking about.)

Becoming so sexual in times of comfort, relaxation, or anticipation is the human way of life. Fight or flight. In survival mode, we don’t have time for this. But I never have to worry about _anything_ anymore. We’re thinking about moving back to the neighborhood. Closer to everyone else, closer to our parents. Maybe this is authentic. Maybe this is the right way, for us, to live life.

We decided to stay at Namjoon’s for a couple days. Take the couch, have our fun. Make Saturday morning breakfast together. Friday night, we all smoked pot and Namjoon jacked off to the sight of me riding Yoongi in his bed. Took some pictures, too. His dick and my ass are a pornographic couple. Never mind our emotions, I guess. The weekend was as enjoyable as I wanted it to be, and we went out Saturday evening for an early dinner, Yoongi and I. Namjoon was selling dope to a customer when we got back. His ‘friend’, his client, had his hair dyed a raspberry blond, and although it was peaked like an anime supermodel in the front, there were dreadlocks lining the back of his head like a mullet. I didn’t bother to ask whether they were real or not; someone so _of the streets_ would never fake that. What a catastrophe. 

“I don’t think you’re supposed to have those.” I said, gesturing to his poorly formed, poorly kept, and poorly cleaned rat’s nest.

“The fuck does that mean? ‘Supposed to?’” His voice was scratchy. Where the two sat at the small kitchen dining table, I moved myself behind him and gently rested my chin against his shoulder, muttering in return. “It _means_ you’re misinformed. You don’t have the texture for it, and they’re _ugly_ on you.” 

Yoongi, arms crossed against the door frame, laughed from a few feet away. Namjoon spoke immediately, uncaring and clearly willing to dismiss the man once his money was on the table: “Jiho, just let it go–”

Before he could reply, I caught his tongue mid grunt. Slipped my hand down his front, sliding my fingers down his jeans. I didn’t make it far, moving agonizingly slow, distracting him and taking my time as my other grip pulled a handgun from the back of his waistband. All try-hard gangsters keep their second dick there. He thinks he’s somebody he isn’t, I knew that from first glance. When my finger was on the trigger, I pulled back suddenly and held the tip to the back of his head, giggling. Men are weak, people are fickle, and sex is the best weapon around. I gave it back to him and said something about staying in his lane before marching into Namjoon’s bedroom. When all was said and done and shop was closed for the night, he and Yoongi came back in and joked about something or other. 

I wasn’t sober, no. I was just high on another drug. A new drug. _Power._

There was plenty of laughter while we washed in our host’s crowded bathroom, and when all three of us were clean and ready in our pajamas–pretending we’d wear them all night–we laid down between two fans in his queen bed. I was stuck in the middle, which meant when I faced Yoongi to kiss him and rub his crotch, I could press my ass against Namjoon’s. It was a quick series of hidden moves; I learned then, how much it aroused me to do something to someone while other people close by were oblivious. I asked them to make out, over my stomach. For me. Like porn, like the way straight guys treat girls for fun. Like the way they treated me for fun. Toys. And it was hot; they went at it. I wanted to see them fuck, too, but they weren’t feeling entirely receptive. Not _completely_ adaptive to my corrupted brain.

I agreed to try something new. Something I would have been cynical about before, particularly with Yoongi in the equation. Double penetration.

I liked the sentiment. Their cocks together, both erotic for me and intimate for them. Some march of brotherhood. An act of unity of them together, and of us as a trio. On my side, a leg high in the air, back uncomfortably arched. I groaned like a lion whose territory is threatened, one with an injured family. But I was a tiger, receiving and keeping, keeping when they finished, both at the same time. It was another affectionate thought, against me and between the two of them: Namjoon got to feel the sensation of Yoongi’s orgasmic throbbing against his own sensitive flesh, and in such a tight and warm space at that. It seemed like a heavenly thing, even if the pain began to numb my body. They kissed me and rubbed me but slipped back to watch their combined net worth of seed slip out of my gaping, open hole. 

I was still performing, then. Still doing things because I found the act of them charming, and not because I wholeheartedly enjoyed every minute. But as they took turns licking from my backside as I dirtied the sheets, I realized that I had the control to say yes or no. Being forced like this would be the ultimate defeat, but having men wrapped around my finger and pining for that chance? That’s power all the same. The charm that disarmed Mr. Bang into trusting me? Power. His assumption that I wasn’t a threat, that my stature or my stance or my face or my height defined my value? _Power._ I am the black widow, and my methods may vary from the typical straightforwardness found on the streets. I’m different from my cohort, but we’re in love. We share love, or hate. And we share _power_ too. 

They gave me a tag team blowjob, once I caught my breath and the whining of discomfort subsided. Both of their lips around me, easily surrounding me. Yoongi drooling on my thigh and rubbing my sack while I grabbed two handfuls of Namjoon’s hair and fucked his throat as best I could. His gagging made me finish sooner than I would have liked to. White ribbons erupted onto his face; I asked Yoongi to lick them off, and he did. They kissed again. I felt alive.

They were kind enough to clean me with a washcloth and we fell asleep in the same order. In the middle of the night, closer to the late morning, I quietly ran my tongue along Namjoon’s jawline and began to rub him through his underwear. I covered his mouth and gave him a handjob; I made sure he came into the palm of my hand and licked it clean before falling back to sleep. I wanted to satiate my own desire for silent exhibitionism. I wanted Yoongi to be awake, next time. But when I woke up for the day, I felt love more than anything else. I pulled the covers back and blew Yoongi while Namjoon watched. I was worn out, but not bored, no. Life is just beginning for me.


	37. In Lieu of Flowers

_Kim Seohyun lost her battle with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease this morning (Friday, June 30, 2017) at the age of 51. She was surrounded by the love of her family and left them peacefully._

_Ms. Kim is preceded in death by her parents Lee Eunyoung and Kim Jimin. She is survived by her husband Byungho, her son Jimin, her sisters Kim Soojin and Kim Younghee, and her four nephews and nieces, all of whom provided her care and comfort in her final years._

_From a young age, Ms. Kim was passionate about nature and family. She found her soulmate and life partner at the age of 21. They married shortly thereafter and raised one child in the house she grew up in. Ms. Kim was famous for the formation of her local Parent Teacher Union and was deeply involved in her son’s education as well as her husband’s business, a corner store in their urban neighborhood. Her talents included sewing, cooking, and playing the piano. She loved spending time with her extended family camping and going on hikes. She was a beloved neighbor and homemaker for over 20 years before her diagnosis._

_At the deceased’s request, no services will be held. Donating to your local hospital or giving to the dementia research foundation of your choice would be a generous way to share your grief and express your condolences._

_We are comforted knowing that Seohyun will never forget who Seohyun is again._


	38. To Kill a Mockingbird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Birds of a feather flock together. Or in our case, boys with lisps will always kiss._

It’s definitely been the weirdest weekend of my life. I’ve hardly slept, hardly gone to the bathroom, hardly eaten a thing. But I’ve been slurping down diet soda. I don’t know why. 

It had been so long, since the seven of us really did something together. Went out, and bonus points for a summer night adventure. That was high school and college, to me: running around, getting into trouble on purpose. We never hurt anyone, but loitering, trespassing, and light shoplifting were natural consequences of our curiosity. Nobody should give anyone who knows that many teenagers a driver’s license, but we all had them.

It was more exciting, though. When I was afraid to steal and never wanted to get caught doing anything wrong. We dropped like flies, or at least our collective innocence did. One by one, but I want to think only me, Namjoon, and Yoongi were truly gone. Seokjin and Hoseok had it, and Taehyung had it and Jungkook had it. And it’d be some cataclysmic transformation if they didn’t. I don’t know who’d hold us together. I don’t know what we’d be. But innocence is the most valuable commodity humans know; it’s what allowed us to pretend that everything was normal just one more time. We went out to eat, all laid outside and stared at the stars. It felt tame. I needed to be tame, just to pull me out of this funk. 

We went back to Namjoon’s after that, he and the two of us, and he crashed. We stayed up in the living room.

“What is this for?” Yoongi put a small, yellow shoe box on the coffee table in front of me. So I wanted to know why. We were still in our underwear, fresh out of the shower. Me, black boxers. Him, black briefs.

“For saving my life.” His voice was so genuine; he was so sure of himself. This had made me: murdering in self-defense, using my brain. Witnessing death and embracing life. And now, to stop romanticizing a dark, permanent stain in my personal history. I could still appreciate it, the way I appreciated his cheeks. The way his smile made me smile.

I’d like to think I’ve always done a good job of taking care of Yoongi. Whether he needed pampering or a tough love, I’ve always been there for him. Through thick and thin. We don’t argue. He is easygoing, but when he demands something, he gets it. I give it to him whenever I can. Silence. Release. Help. A shoulder. A hug, a kiss. Maybe, even after half a decade of romance, this was the first true trial of our love. A major test, and hopefully the last. I am fiercely protective of Yoongi. I would take a bullet for him–though he’d hate hearing me say that, as I’ve said before–and I’d… well, I’d kill for Yoongi. 

I have killed for Yoongi. Not as his right-hand man, like Namjoon, but to save his life. I have proven myself the ultimate angel of domestic bliss; a beacon of intimate hope.

My blinking became meaningful and purposeful, now fast. Flickering like a short circuited light bulb. But my current wasn’t low; I wasn’t under-performing. I cleared my throat and lifted the top of the box off. Inside, atop egg shell colored foam, were two golden bands. Rings of gently varying sizes. His fingers were faster, grabbing the wider one and slipping it on my left hand. We didn’t play by the rules, we didn’t buy diamonds, and we _didn’t_ need to ask. It wasn’t a question, only an answer. An inevitable truth coming to fruition. With the corner of my lips lifted and my mouth agape in shock, I stared at its smoothness. He brought the other to my palm and lifted his head in anticipation, his tongue on the bed of his mouth and over his lower teeth like a panting puppy dog. I wet my lips and closed them in a grin, equipping him with his own self-awarded gift. He pushed forward and kissed me like he’d been waiting to kiss me like that forever. Birds of a feather flock together. Or in our case, boys with lisps will always kiss.

I started crying. Another ailment of a lovey-dovey affair. My heart still fluttered for Yoongi after a lifetime by his side. I love him so much. Everything about him. Who he is, how he acts, what he does. From his skin to the soul, the soul I hope I never lose. That’s the impossible princess suicide fantasy: why can’t we be together in the afterlife? Reincarnated together after a meticulous ritual. You can’t create or destroy energy. I said that myself. The older we get, the more I’ll feel this realization: that I don’t need to be with him to adore him. I adore who he is anywhere and everywhere. If he feels happiness with someone else, it’ll still be his soul at gentle peace. It brought me comfort, right then. It brings me comfort now. 

My love for Yoongi was finally a selfless love, when he put that ring on my finger. Or more aptly, when I was put in a position to choose. To disfigure the course of my life forever to save him, or to survive myself. I could have gotten out, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t imagine not appreciating every moment I have with Yoongi. That I could save him was a blessing. Not once did I wonder what would have happened if I stayed at Namjoon’s another hour, at that day. It was irrelevant and impossible. Another Jimin with another color, make and model of this soul had to deal with those consequences. But my Yoongi was still here, wiping a tear from under my left eye with the pad of his thumb. Biting his lip, smiling at me. 

I didn’t have to say anything. We’d said I love you too many times already. Sex meant nothing. We hugged and made sounds, and smiled and cried. We rubbed noses, laying down on the couch. I fell asleep with a smile on my face, and woke up with the ring still on my finger. His head still next to mine.


	39. Two Weeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _My mind is the only thing I have, but he isn’t always friendly._

Yoongi’s been honest with me about the way I’ve been acting. We’ve spent the majority of the past two weeks living out of a motel room because of the way I’ve been acting. It isn’t a financial strain, though thinking about money and instability is a recent matter of paranoia for me. It isn’t the same around people. I don’t act the same and that’s alright, but it makes me uncomfortable. I want to be fine again. I think I will be one day. It feels like it’s coming. I feel it coming.

Jihoon’s become much freer than I thought he was capable of. Now was the summer before he would start college, which meant that having fun was imperative. He would either begin preparing for a wild, salacious university lifestyle or go lower than he would in those four years combined - off the deep end, in anticipation. He’d make a graceful landing on the other side, after testing his own willpower and measuring the depths of his mind. I was confident of that. Mature at such a young age, he was wise beyond his years to know that his relationship with his God was his alone. New testament, not old. One who loves all of his children whether they treat him with respect or not. Whether or not they acknowledge his existence at all. Religion’s supposed to be insurance for emotional health, that’s what spirituality is. He might not know it for what it is, but he’s taking care of himself.

I wondered if his openness toward sin came from the blood on his hands. The beating he didn’t ask for; the two boys his age, dead on his watch. It’s not his fault, I still believe that. I have sympathy for him and I pity him. Yoongi’s temper is what did it, and Yoongi’s misunderstandings. Yoongi has street smarts but forgets, sometimes, that just because he knows someone so dearly doesn’t mean they’re living the same life. We are, now. Fully. But Jihoon wasn’t. Now he was. Now I was. 

I don’t bother myself with the thought of his corruption; Jihoon’s rebellion has been as contained as the typical young man’s. He endured the rise and fall of a king, the close-quarters migration of his father’s power, and his mother’s divine mourning. I’d wanna fuck, too. He hasn’t done drugs, and hasn’t gulped a thing. Hasn’t been intoxicated.

 _Yet_. Conveniently enough, today is the day he turns nineteen. Yoongi wanted to celebrate with the beginning of our now shared seasonally revelries. Drinking seemed like a _wonderful_ idea. Why wouldn’t it?

Seeing my dear lover’s little brother _en déshabillé_ was just another memory of our townhouse, but I was still surprised in retrospect. Perhaps all of the Min boys were shameless, and lecherous at that. It just rightfully took the youngest the longest to blossom. Their reckless elder started disturbingly young, and Yoongi and I have been fooling around for as long as I can remember. But Jihoon took his dear time, and it is for that reason that I didn’t anticipate seeing him in all of his nudity again. They don’t call it a birthday suit for no reason, I suppose (vodka will do that to you). Namjoon’s apartment was a convenient place for a discreet little party, so we chose to invite Jihoon over ‘for a surprise’. Obviously wasn’t much of a surprise, considering the day, but he came in the evening. After celebrating with his mother’s inner circle, going to lunch with her, and making her feel like he was just _fine_ , she agreed to remain silent as he packed for a sleepover with friends. 

We’ve always thought the idea of strippers for a party is amusing, but our access is limited. Yoongi employees many exotic dancers, but with our lifestyle, it’s hard to trust anyone. I gave lap dances once, high on whiskey and cough medicine. To the boys, in a circle. Like a stag party, bachelors. It might have been the fat blunt he burnt through by himself, fishbowling the truck until we got to his mother’s house, but he wanted a repeat. Cracking open a bottled beer in the car, he said I could put on a show for Jihoon if the mood felt right. I could do whatever he wanted. Simple enough instructions. I asked him if he was okay with that, and what I meant–considering the fact that it was his _idea_ –was if he would get off on that. 

Yoongi wasn’t one to have staunch rules regarding these things; he didn’t care about much. If it was inside of our circle, he didn’t care if he knew it was happening as it did or before it did, just as long as I told him after. It came out naturally, because of how comfortable we were. But when it was outside of that circle, I wanted him to approve ahead of time, and always to be there. I wanted him to tell me no. Because I definitely was not comfortable with it, but I felt compliant in my life now. Complacent like a caricature.

Seungcheol was the only person Jihoon wanted to bring along. I asked Yoongi what I was supposed to do with him. He laughed, and all he said was ‘no kissing’. I think he assumed they were dating, and I did too. So what, nothing would happen? Traditional teenaged jealousy and monogamy? Or a threesome? It wasn’t _who_ it was, but rather _what_ it was. I didn’t know if I felt up to the challenge. It felt like an emotional challenge, to me, at the time. But they both squeezed into the front seat a moment later. Jihoon waved to his mom, Yoongi flipped her off and laughed as she reacted dramatically, and we turned around. Jihoon was wearing shorts; when I touched his thigh casually, I calmed down. Just a little bit.

I took benzos in the car. If you don’t know what that is, Google it. Now Google ‘benzo blackout’ and the like. I took a lot of benzos and blacked out. Simple.

I wrote that, you know. Her obituary. 

Newspaper just edited it. Said they had to.

I thought it’d be like the dream, a messy funeral as an emotional wrecking ball. Grieving is inevitable, but the overwhelming feeling was _peace_. Just like the house and its many fostered experiences, my mother will live on in memory for the rest of my life. Both went down in metaphorical flames, but the heat was so inevitable that it seemed to provide spiritual purification. She died a long time ago. It hurts, not being able to see her again, but it isn’t very different. If I warmed a piece of plastic, it’d be similar. Just without the wrinkles, the grey hair.

She’s happier now, in my head. She isn’t suffering anymore, or feeling lost. Maybe she’s more alive than she’s ever been, in a jar of ashes at my dad’s house. I don’t know what to say. Sometimes, I’m speechless. I know, it’s hard to believe. Life can be profound and surprises more often than not. I’m still processing things, really. I’ve been silent because of how massive everything feels. 

I got a tattoo. The detailed outline of Yoongi’s hand on my left butt cheek, including careful perimeter similarities in shape and simulated fingerprints. It’s not sexual. It’s about how he’s everything I have, and when he holds my ass or my lower back, he’s protecting me. The most fragile part of me. In a world like this, in a life like this, someone could hurt me, force me, right there. And it’d stay with me forever. But he’d never let that happen. He’s always taken care of me in more ways than one. _That_ is the most profound. I’ve seen what perverted young men are capable of. That was his first kill. 

He got more ink, too. I told him not too, that it’d fuck up how together and artistic his one ginormous piece looks. But he shaved his pubic hair and put a beautiful, black and grey depiction of my eyes there. Equidistant from the hilt of his flaccid shaft on either side. I think we both chose equally possessive and creative marks of partnership. The truth is that we were both high, and will likely never be sober again.

They seem dramatic; mine was my first. But life seems rather dramatic, right now. You always think getting a tattoo is such a ginormous idea until you have one, and then, it just isn’t. I felt the same way about leaving my first home, and about losing my mother’s rarely cooperative body on this plane. All energy works in unison. I do believe in fate, and I believe everything happens for a reason. Her energy is free, no longer bogged down by a failing body so stubborn to free her. 

I meant what I said. She’ll never forget who she is again. Her soul has been liberated, and I have what I wanted. A silver hourglass filled with some of her ashes. My father didn’t like the idea, but I knew it was right. It’s at home, in my room. It doesn't hold her down or keep her suspended here, but it’s a reminder for the rest of us.

My mind is the only thing I have, but he isn’t always friendly. A lot of drugs let me keep use of my mind. And I think about things and dip lower again, beneath the line of presence. Consciousness. Not every Jimin will face the same fate, but my destiny tells me that there are multiple roads to the same store. I feel just as defeated, not by mental illness but by mental duress. I have lost control of my life because of inebriation, but addiction feels just as impossible. It’s an impossible condition; just as impossible to escape as hallucinations. 

I’m grieving. And I wish I could just wake up, but I can’t. This one isn’t a dream.

I have a deathwish. I’m hoping to feel better before I accidentally complete it. I’m hoping someone doesn’t let me. I’m hoping someone holds me down and knocks me out and locks me up. I need to be chained, bound, held. Still.

The more it hurts, the more I want to be hurt, and the less willing people are to hurt me. The brain isn’t so separated, is it? It isn’t so different. Everything’s one acidic ocean at high tide. And right now I’m lost, but I’ll be found. Soon I’ll be found.


	40. Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I didn’t know I’d miss being so small._

Yoongi was nine when he started drawing for fun. He never got good, but he always loved to do it. Back then, his skin was much darker from spending all that time outside. His cheeks were round, and he had short, dark hair. He was chubby and he wore aggressively brown dress pants and a lemon yellow vest to school almost everyday. His shoes were less than appealingly typical, and they were blue and grey. They didn’t match. They were sneakers, meant for comfort, not show. He wore tall white socks and bunched them up around his ankles. We would paint like that, too. Still years before we’d understand what adults call love. That was joy.

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again. In a world where everything is commodified and objectified, innocence is the most valuable currency known to humankind. It is so immensely meaningful that we can only fully cherish it in retrospect. Childhood happiness can never be found again. Some of the darkest evils of our race are defined by the abuse and corruption of innocence. You can’t fix a broken mirror, and _everyone_ shatters eventually.

No matter how upset I’ve been, I always had my senses. My mind was heavy with the burden of death, but I could still see the world on a morning bike ride, feel the wind against my face, hear the echoes and buzzing. I couldn’t touch Yoongi, not for a week or so. Every time I looked at him, all I saw was that little boy with the big feet, who looked tired after recorder practice but still painted with me for fun. Every time I look at him, I remember helping him through sadness as a teenager. I remember staring at his teeth in kindergarten, and our parents taking us to the river in baseball caps. Splashing in a bath together, hold hands while climbing over rocks.

I can’t explain it, can’t put into words what that love is like. And you can never understand it. Because neither of us are innocent anymore. Innocence is the kindest, lightest, most gentle and ethereal thing you can ever experience, and it’s impossible to understand that until it’s gone. I didn’t know that I should cherish those days. I didn’t know I’d miss being so small. I didn’t know I’d miss his bare skin or his smile, like that. I didn’t know how much we had until we didn’t have it anymore.

I don’t have any interest in hurting myself. Never have. I’ll always be alive, if I have any say, but that doesn’t mean I’ll like it. I might dread every minute, just for fun. But I’ll stick around for all of it. Even if it just means more time to think of all the ways it’s hell, on Earth.


End file.
